As someone with full auditory and visual Aphantasia. This is extremely fucked up and ableist. (I am honestly only half joking this is very ableist either way)
I can’t rotate cows in my head. I can’t even hear cows in my head.
I’m curious about that part. Does that mean you also don’t get that weird thing where you hear like, people chattering/ music/ something falling down just before you fall asleep? Or are dreams/half-asleep hallucinations not affected by aphantasia?
Probably Hypnogogic hallucination, which is a normal and common transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep characterized by vivid hallucinations incorporating any or all senses.
Nope. I don’t think that’s common at all. Maybe the occasional monkey reflex where my body thinks I’m gonna fall off a tree and yanks me awake, but that’s it.
Never had this. I either fall asleep and wake up later. Or I’m getting half-awake dreams before I fall asleep, where I’m not I’m still a bit in control at first, but then lose control. (I know I’m dreaming, I just can’t steer it)
I can remember these half-dreams, but not the real dreams later
I have full apantasia audio and visual. I can still dream. I know I can and I know I see things and hear things in my dream. But when I wake up I can’t recall any visual or audio.
I tried teaching myself the lucid dream at one point and all it did was when I realized I was in a dream. Everything goes away. Exactly as if I’m awake. It’s a very bizarre feeling. It also causes my fight or flight instinct to kick in real hard and gives me panic attacks. So I kind of stop doing that. Ain’t fun and very unpleasant very weird. Far worse than waking up with sleep paralysis I must say.
… I think so? Never questioned it honestly, guess I’ll have to do some research now haha
edit: this website says they’re fiiiiine, although the auditory ones are rarer than visual and somatic ones. Somewhat related to Narcolepsy though, so I guess that’s another thing to mention when I get evaluated for that haha (getting on adhd meds somewhat fixed my daytime eepyness so I’ve been procrastinating on getting it checked out)
Or is it that auditory hallucinations are strongly associated (not clinically, just the way they are always talked about) with bad mental health problems like schizophrenia, which makes them taboo, so people choose not to talk about them, even to doctors?
I get auditory, gustatory, and olfactory hallucinations all the time, due to chronic headache and migraines. Wish I got visual ones too, just for the variety, but alas. I hate peanut butter so so much (my most common hallucination is the smell or taste of peanut butter). My auditory hallucinations aren’t usually voices talking, though, they tend to be cats meowing or chickens yelling, because that’s what I hear most frequently in my daily life, so that’s what I’m trained to listen for.
Wow that sounds like it sucks, though the cats and chickens is kinda funny :) I usually hallucinate loud noises like something falling or a door slamming or something.
100% of theoretical physicists would agree that cows are spheres. You could do mental math in which you calculate changes to the cardinality of the distributed mass.
I discovered it when I was…23? My whole life I figured people were saying “picture this…” figuratively and it didn’t even occur to me that it could be otherwise because it was self-evidently impossible to me to “see” something until I learned the word “aphantasia” and that the inability to visualize is not considered the norm/not universal.
It takes actually knowing that people actually see images to know that you cannot do that.
Counting sheep never made true sense to me. How is keeping a tally of “imaginary” sheep jumping over an “imaginary” fence supposed to help me fall asleep?
Makes sense when you realize people do it to stop their brains from randomly sending themselves other imaginary that’s going to keep them up. It’s like choosing to turn on the TV to something you could fall asleep to is my understanding.
For you and @Sludgeyy@lemmy.world , do you find it affect your memory/recall at all? Especially for reading something, do you need to read aloud? You dont need to answer by the way, I have my suspicions that someone I know might have it but they aren’t aware.
From my understanding people can play a “movie” of something like their last birthday party. See who was there, what they were wearing, etc.
Unless I make note of something I’m not going to remember it. I can “subconsciously” make a note of something and recall it but I cannot re
But other than a list of facts I have about my last birthday party, I cannot recall or experience it again.
As for reading. There’s no difference between me reading a biology textbook or a romance novel. I read, soak up knowledge, critically think, and remember.
I have to subvocalize to read. I’m curious on why you assumed we had to read outloud. I don’t know how other aphants read.
Edit: Wait, subvocalize is different than inner speech is what I just read. I have to have my inner voice speak the word.
I would say I generally have an excellent memory with better recall for what is read vs what is said. Not that helps you, but I’m a merely anecdotal case.
Maybe more than recall ask them when they read fiction if they pictures the characters orbjust kind of glaze over during prolong descriptive sections. Do they complain about movie casting? I never picture characters so even if I think a performance is bad, I’m never mad that the actor doesn’t look like how I imagined them.
I have full visual in auditorial aphantasia. No visualization, no inner monologue and no ability to recall. Sounds in my head.
All of my thoughts are basically conceptual connections between ideas. Sort of like everything is a gut feeling? Like if I know something I just know it. I really don’t have a better way to explain this.
It makes it incredibly easy to just do things that I know how to do. Nothing gets in the way and that’s incredibly reliable recall.
The moment I have to explain to anyone else I am completely at a loss. I very rarely can give any reference directions or any meaningful help short of just saying do the thing.
Like you want me to do a 35–step process exactly repeatedly without any error. I can do that. Not a problem.
You need me to walk someone through a three-step process and one of those steps involves something they do automatically like beat their heart. Yeah no I’m not even getting past the first step. Good luck.
As someone with full auditory and visual Aphantasia. This is extremely fucked up and ableist. (I am honestly only half joking this is very ableist either way)
I can’t rotate cows in my head. I can’t even hear cows in my head.
The cops still can’t stop be tho.
Lol if they had said that you can count your fingers then we’d have someone in here without arms saying how ableist the tweet was
How dare you, some people are mute and can’t say! /j
Hard to write without fingers too. Doable but harder, very abelist again!!
Some people are in a coma. Just don’t do anything!
Everyone must cut out their own tongues and chop off their hands and feet, for inclusivity!
I’m able to do it if I’m half asleep. Problem is i get so excited at my ability to create anything I want in amazing detail that I wake back up
Sounds like you will need to rotate a real cow while in international waters.
Well planning all this and executing it you won’t have time to be bored.
I’m curious about that part. Does that mean you also don’t get that weird thing where you hear like, people chattering/ music/ something falling down just before you fall asleep? Or are dreams/half-asleep hallucinations not affected by aphantasia?
What the hell are you on about??
Probably Hypnogogic hallucination, which is a normal and common transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep characterized by vivid hallucinations incorporating any or all senses.
I didn’t even know that was a thing. That’s really cool. I’ve never experienced that
I have this too. Music, people, simulated falling, stuff like that right before I fall asleep. I always thought this was common?
Nope. I don’t think that’s common at all. Maybe the occasional monkey reflex where my body thinks I’m gonna fall off a tree and yanks me awake, but that’s it.
Yea if you’re possessed by a demon maybe /jk
Never experienced it and never heard anyone else mention it before.
Never had this. I either fall asleep and wake up later. Or I’m getting half-awake dreams before I fall asleep, where I’m not I’m still a bit in control at first, but then lose control. (I know I’m dreaming, I just can’t steer it)
I can remember these half-dreams, but not the real dreams later
Exploding Head Syndrome maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome
Mayhaps
There’s also exploding head syndrome. That one’s a real bitch
Apparently dreams aren’t necessarily affected by aphantasia.
I feel like when I do have dreams they are extremely vivid and real because I am seeing my thoughts which isn’t normal.
I have full apantasia audio and visual. I can still dream. I know I can and I know I see things and hear things in my dream. But when I wake up I can’t recall any visual or audio.
I tried teaching myself the lucid dream at one point and all it did was when I realized I was in a dream. Everything goes away. Exactly as if I’m awake. It’s a very bizarre feeling. It also causes my fight or flight instinct to kick in real hard and gives me panic attacks. So I kind of stop doing that. Ain’t fun and very unpleasant very weird. Far worse than waking up with sleep paralysis I must say.
Wait, what? Is that something people experience?
… I think so? Never questioned it honestly, guess I’ll have to do some research now haha
edit: this website says they’re fiiiiine, although the auditory ones are rarer than visual and somatic ones. Somewhat related to Narcolepsy though, so I guess that’s another thing to mention when I get evaluated for that haha (getting on adhd meds somewhat fixed my daytime eepyness so I’ve been procrastinating on getting it checked out)
Auditory hallucinations aren’t as common as you seem to think haha. I have them too sometimes.
Or is it that auditory hallucinations are strongly associated (not clinically, just the way they are always talked about) with bad mental health problems like schizophrenia, which makes them taboo, so people choose not to talk about them, even to doctors?
I get auditory, gustatory, and olfactory hallucinations all the time, due to chronic headache and migraines. Wish I got visual ones too, just for the variety, but alas. I hate peanut butter so so much (my most common hallucination is the smell or taste of peanut butter). My auditory hallucinations aren’t usually voices talking, though, they tend to be cats meowing or chickens yelling, because that’s what I hear most frequently in my daily life, so that’s what I’m trained to listen for.
Wow that sounds like it sucks, though the cats and chickens is kinda funny :) I usually hallucinate loud noises like something falling or a door slamming or something.
The only thing I’d classify as that is “feeling” like I hear far-away inaudible voices.
I would like to know more
100% of theoretical physicists would agree that cows are spheres. You could do mental math in which you calculate changes to the cardinality of the distributed mass.
It should look something like this: 0⁰
Fuck, it’s the police!
Is this ableist? Doesn’t seem prejudicial at all. /g
What does /g means?
It means genuine, as in I’m asking a genuine question.
Thank you.
For reference: https://tonetaglist.carrd.co/
Oh nice! Thanks again.
No problem :D
My guess is /genuine
Thank you.
No, it isn’t.
How/when did you discover this?
Not OP but also have aphantasia.
I discovered it when I was…23? My whole life I figured people were saying “picture this…” figuratively and it didn’t even occur to me that it could be otherwise because it was self-evidently impossible to me to “see” something until I learned the word “aphantasia” and that the inability to visualize is not considered the norm/not universal.
Yeah took me 36 years.
It takes actually knowing that people actually see images to know that you cannot do that.
Counting sheep never made true sense to me. How is keeping a tally of “imaginary” sheep jumping over an “imaginary” fence supposed to help me fall asleep?
Makes sense when you realize people do it to stop their brains from randomly sending themselves other imaginary that’s going to keep them up. It’s like choosing to turn on the TV to something you could fall asleep to is my understanding.
Yeah, with that one in particular I thhough everybody was just beating a dead horse with the same joke on “counting sleep.”
For you and @Sludgeyy@lemmy.world , do you find it affect your memory/recall at all? Especially for reading something, do you need to read aloud? You dont need to answer by the way, I have my suspicions that someone I know might have it but they aren’t aware.
Memory or recall of facts. No.
Memory or recall of life experiences. Yes.
From my understanding people can play a “movie” of something like their last birthday party. See who was there, what they were wearing, etc.
Unless I make note of something I’m not going to remember it. I can “subconsciously” make a note of something and recall it but I cannot re
But other than a list of facts I have about my last birthday party, I cannot recall or experience it again.
As for reading. There’s no difference between me reading a biology textbook or a romance novel. I read, soak up knowledge, critically think, and remember.
I have to subvocalize to read. I’m curious on why you assumed we had to read outloud. I don’t know how other aphants read.
Edit: Wait, subvocalize is different than inner speech is what I just read. I have to have my inner voice speak the word.
I would say I generally have an excellent memory with better recall for what is read vs what is said. Not that helps you, but I’m a merely anecdotal case.
Maybe more than recall ask them when they read fiction if they pictures the characters orbjust kind of glaze over during prolong descriptive sections. Do they complain about movie casting? I never picture characters so even if I think a performance is bad, I’m never mad that the actor doesn’t look like how I imagined them.
I’ll never forget trying to read Redwall as a child and trying to remember what character was what animal. I had to write down a cheat sheet.
I have full visual in auditorial aphantasia. No visualization, no inner monologue and no ability to recall. Sounds in my head.
All of my thoughts are basically conceptual connections between ideas. Sort of like everything is a gut feeling? Like if I know something I just know it. I really don’t have a better way to explain this.
It makes it incredibly easy to just do things that I know how to do. Nothing gets in the way and that’s incredibly reliable recall.
The moment I have to explain to anyone else I am completely at a loss. I very rarely can give any reference directions or any meaningful help short of just saying do the thing.
Like you want me to do a 35–step process exactly repeatedly without any error. I can do that. Not a problem.
You need me to walk someone through a three-step process and one of those steps involves something they do automatically like beat their heart. Yeah no I’m not even getting past the first step. Good luck.
How do you read?
I have aphantasia and I have to subvocalize each word that I want to read.
Edit: Wait, subvocalize is different than inner speech is what I just read. I have to have my inner voice speak the word.
I can hear cows in my head, but seriously it’s not that great. All they say all day long is, “kill them. Kill them all.”
It’s kind of monotonous.