There's a metal cover of that song. I don't know anything beyond it existing because I heard it in passing while biking to work last week but it made me laugh when I realized what it was.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
Yeah i'm like 80% aphantasiac, I can picture maybe the last time I saw a cow I, could probably imagine something else in the static scene, I can't even really make it turn it's head.
I can think about how a cow looks, colors, patters, what a cow might do but I can’t visualize anything. I didn’t know there was a word for this or that people could actually visualize things in their mind. I thought it was just a turn of phrase.
My dreams aren't visually detailed, but i'm not sure that's necessarily unique. I also have trouble with faces, but I can remember really long selections of words and numbers.
Oddly I can do a really good job drawing 2d and 3d things from reference art if they're 1:1
Same, but I remember that I used to not be able to stop rotating things in my head… wonder if aphantasia can develop with age or maybe brain damage (yay covid, messed up some flavours and smells for me too, artificial mango flavour stuff tastes like TV static)
That might not be specifically aphantasia, but closely related symptom called SDAM(severly deficient autobiographical memory), but yes, I'm immune to seeing or reliving any of the past traumatic or bad events. Lived through past or experiences don't exist for me.
I don't have dreams or at least the handful of times per year i have something that might resemble a dream. It's forgotten within minutes after waking up.
I mean, it's a pretty hard thing to understand if you don't know about aphantasia. Since we can't know what other people experience in their mind, what we perceive is considered 'normal' because that's all we know.
I didn't realize I had aphantasia until I was 18. Doesn't mean I suddenly became aphantasic at that same time.
Same here. I think it was actually this meme that did it. I saw people commenting that they could not and I'm like "ha yeah, of course you can't, who can do that?". The lots of people are like, yeah, I can create a complex 3d shape in my mind and manipulate it, turn it, get closer, etc. I'm like WTF who are these megamind savants who can do this. Turns out, most people.
I felt very alone and very incapable after that realization.
Man...same. Had no idea people could actually picture something in their mind until I was well into my 20s. Wasn't until that point where I felt like I was at such a major disability at work compared to everyone else..the amount of times I was told, "picture this..." not realizing they meant literally.
I am curious about this condition. What goes on in your head and how did you figure out you had aphantasia? Now I am trying to imagine a rotating cow after reading the comments (didn't imagine it when I saw the meme), and I can only recreate in my head the gif somebody posted in one of the comments.
It's like knowing a cow is the room next door. You are aware of the cow but you can't see it. If someone says the cow is brown, you are now aware the cow in the room next door is a brown cow but you can't see it because it's in another room. Except the other room is your mind.
I don't need to see a cow to imagine it in the next room. Same concept.
It's easy to figure out if you have aphantasia. Think of a cow. Do you see a cow?
It's not a condition or a disability, it's just a different way that some brains work. Don't fall into the trap of - it's outside the majority so it must be a deficiency. Most people with aphantasia don't even know they have it.
Also, strangely I can rotate a cow in my mind, but there is no visual feedback. I "feel" the cow rotating. I choose where in the physical space to project the imagined cow and there is the imagined "physical" sensation of the cow spinning as if it's an extension of my mind. I can imagine sound as well. But I don't see anything.
I have an easier time feel it moving that seeing it. But I can see it and I doesn't rotate on the same axe than all those GIF. The legs goes up until it is on its back then back where I can't see them and on its legs again.
I got recommended a video that introduced the term to me and it was a very jarring realization.
Personally I've always struggled with expressing my thoughts in general. Before I learned about aphantasia I had started saying it was like I think in concepts instead of words or pictures. I know what I'm thinking and it's not like it's a vague idea, but for whatever reason actually translating it into a real language is really hard for me. I have an easier time writing out my thoughts than I do speaking them at least.
The most I can visualize are a few 'vivid' images that I spent a lot of time curating, usually from listening to music or remembering a dream I wrote down. Even then, When I try to think about those little exceptions, it's still only a tiny fraction of the whole image that I can really come up with. Thinking about it now, it's super weird to describe! I got super intro writing after I figured out I had aphantasia (shattered my hopes of being able to draw. But that doesn't mean aphantasic people can't draw. I just learned how to draw incorrectly and it screwed me over) and I like to think I'm decent at describing visuals despite all this.
To use the gif as an example, I can really only imagine the frame, moving images are practically impossible for me. And it's really only the sillohuete I can make out.
I also realized I'm face blind too, and part of me wonders how much that correlates to aphantasia
I think I understand what you are saying. I have a hard time imagining scenes, especially when I am reading, and definitely not in any vivid detail. For example, there is a kitchen scene in a book I am currently reading. I vaguely picture the kitchen of the house from my childhood but that is pretty much all I can come up with. I don't think that is aphantasia, though.
While a prevalence of 0.8% may seem like a tiny amount but when applied to a large population it's a significant number of people. Let's say a city has a nice round 100,000 people, a small city by any measure. That's 800 people, not such a small number anymore. The lives of those 800 people are worth thinking about. Granted in the context of a larger population but it's still something.
For actual refence it's estimated that between 1% and 4% of people have either complete visual or auditorial aphantasia.
With a much larger percent of the world's population, having some sort of partial aphenasia. And a smaller percent having complete aphantasia of both types.
The disorder was only officially recognized in 2015. Has basically had no real research put into it outside of the last 10 years as well.
It's non-life impacting so rarely goes diagnosed if ever. And because it's so new, very few people know about it and go most if not their entire lives not realizing they have it.
I've seen some estimations putting it as high as 8 to 10% have complete of one type or the other. It's a lot more common than people realize. Especially because it's considered a gradient. The majority of cases are not complete lack but more commonly a middle ground. Such as the inability to picture, color rotation, shape, distinction. All audio typically is more along the lines of knowing or monologue or the inability to recall sounds in their head.
I'm one of the lucky few who has complete aphantasia of both types. I am unable to visualize anything. I have no inner monologue and I cannot recall sounds.
There's no static. There's no fuzz. There's no darkness there's nothing. It's just sort of empty. I recall most things through a conceptual connection to other things is the best way to describe it.
The only reason I even know that a inner vision is possible and what made me go down the rabbit hole to look into it. It's because I still dream. I understand that I have full visualization in my dreams but when I wake up it's empty. It's gone. I know I saw something but I cannot recall it. There's a complete lack of any visual memory.
It's very weird feeling. I tried to learn to lucid dream at one point as well and I came to the realization. The moment I realized I'm dreaming. Everything goes from visualize to pure darkness and then nothing. Exactly as if I'm awake. It's very trippy.
Its estimated that almost 95%+ of all cases of it go unnoticed or diagnosed. It was only officially recognized 10 years ago.
Its estimated that 1-4% of the population have complete audio or visual aphantasia. 1-2% have both and roughly 30% of the population has some level of partial. And these are conservative numbers.
And that's just based on the last few years of study of somethingt that most people don't even know exists, is non life impacting in a way to get people to speak out assistance. And thus goes mostly untalked about outside a few online circles for the most part.
Either way, if you just include people with complete visual alone that's still a fuck load of people.
When I used to have to go to church as a kid, I'd imagine I was starting a new save file of Zelda Ocarina of Time. By the time mass was over I'd usually be up to one of the first rooms in the Great Deku Tree, in my head. It was only decades later I learned I was also autistic, but that's a story for another day!
Traitorous people want to make you believe for some reason that YOU CAN do things WITHOUT your LOCAL CORPORATION knowing. TO USE such DANGEROUS things as IMAGINATION is ANTI AMERICAN, and is the attempt of ILLEGAL ALIENS to weaken the AMERICAN ECONOMY which is doing great, best it has ever been, yesterday a big economy, strong economy; beautiful economy, came down to me, tears down its eyes, thanking me, saying mister President, thank you so much for making me beautiful again, and I said of course I did, after SLOW POWEL got out, I was able to lower interest rates, devalue the dollar and FORCE AMERICAN FACTORIES back so that great products like most AMERICAN products can really SUCEED and BRING the AMERICAN DREAM BACK contrary to CHINA which is faltering, have you seen how mismanaged their real estate sector is, I could’ve done much better, cause I am a GENIUS and clearly I am amazing, did you see how I ACED MULTIPLE COGNITIVE TESTS, they asked me list these animals, and I said, it’s obvious, woman man person camera TV and the doctor, she speaking of XI, he’s an amazing leader who is making China great and TOLD ME that I PREVENTED AMERICAN DECLINE AND AM NOW ON ROUTE TO A GOLDEN AGE like my BALLROOM which is GOLDEN and TACTICAL, and SAFE just like our stock market IT IS RISING AND BETTER THAN EVER. THANK YOU FOR YOU ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER, PRESIDENT DONALD JOHNATHAN TRUMP
Gotta be honest, sleep deprivation really helps with these
I have a thing were I can imagine speech without having to imagine sounds. I don't know how to call that. That is some sort of quiet internal narration for my imagination that happened when I read a lot. When I watch a lot of movies, I end up imagining camera mouvement, like traveling and zoom in/out. It is like I can imagine vividly but the way my imagination express itself is out of my control and depend on my recent environnement.
I like to interpret the flow of imagination as a river that has impressions in it. I can play with that at will, be precise and specific or just observe what passes by, zoom out to a broader view. There is energy where is concentration. But if I am tired or bored and have to do repetitious tasks, it can be very distracting to dream away and I think this is important to consider for people that are creative. Many are diagnosed with ADHD or other conditions when they just haven't found out enough about themselves.
Is the mind cow merely rotating in air, or must I imagine myself picking it up and rotating it physically? If I'm imagining physically rotating the cow, am I imagining exertion, or should I be imagining that I have super human strength?
In what plane should I rotate it?
Is the cow in a field or in a barn? Or is it in an empty void?
If I'm physically rotating the cow, how am I dressed? Am I wearing my normal attire, or am I dressed like a dairy farmer? How does a dairy farmer dress? Is the cow wearing any clothing?
Can I choose what season I imagine the cow rotating in, or must it be the current season?
I have so many questions and now I'm even more bored than I was before!
Blasphemer! The one true cow is Tetrahedragon Cow (3 reasons: first it's made of triangles and you can't beat triangles. Just ask particle cow. Second I forget number two but number three is that there's a dragon in there)
Yet with NSPM-7 they're allowed to investigate you if you appear to hold anti-american, anti-capitalist, anti-family, anti-traditional values or extreme ideas om race, gender, etc...
So, effectively, they can investigate you for thought crimes now.
Case in point this was 2 posts down in my feed lol
147 Comments
edgesmash@lemmy.world · 82 pts · 81d
Consider the consequences of your actions, please!
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 25 pts · 81d
Is it worth it? That depends. What percentage of the boys does it bring to the yard?
edgesmash@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 80d
I think we need to run a controlled experiment to determine the ratio of boys brought to one's yard.
ThunderQueen@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 80d
AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 80d
There's a metal cover of that song. I don't know anything beyond it existing because I heard it in passing while biking to work last week but it made me laugh when I realized what it was.
mister_flibble@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 80d
I gotchu, it's Goodnight Nurse
OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 80d
That image could have a Peta watermark, and I wouldn't question it.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 62 pts · 81d
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.
Saapas@piefed.zip · 67 pts · 81d
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
ignotum@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 81d
How dare you, some people are mute and can't say! /j
M137@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 81d
Hard to write without fingers too. Doable but harder, very abelist again!!
0ops@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 80d
Some people are in a coma. Just don't do anything!
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 80d
Everyone must cut out their own tongues and chop off their hands and feet, for inclusivity!
yermaw@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 81d
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
getFrog@piefed.social · 6 pts · 81d
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?
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 81d
What the hell are you on about??
SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 81d
Probably Hypnogogic hallucination, which is a normal and common transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep characterized by vivid hallucinations incorporating any or all senses.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 80d
I didn't even know that was a thing. That's really cool. I've never experienced that
Speculater@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 81d
I have this too. Music, people, simulated falling, stuff like that right before I fall asleep. I always thought this was common?
ByteJunk@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 80d
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.
CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 81d
Yea if you’re possessed by a demon maybe /jk
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 81d
Never experienced it and never heard anyone else mention it before.
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 81d
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
Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 81d
Exploding Head Syndrome maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 81d
Mayhaps
De_Narm@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 81d
Wait, what? Is that something people experience?
getFrog@piefed.social · 5 pts · 81d
.. 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)
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 81d
Auditory hallucinations aren't as common as you seem to think haha. I have them too sometimes.
SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 81d
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.
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 80d
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.
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 81d
The only thing I’d classify as that is "feeling" like I hear far-away inaudible voices.
Whelks_chance@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 81d
I would like to know more
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 80d
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.
Sludgeyy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
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.
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 80d
There's also exploding head syndrome. That one's a real bitch
Matty_r@programming.dev · 4 pts · 81d
How/when did you discover this?
user_name@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 81d
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.
Sludgeyy@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 80d
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.
user_name@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
Yeah, with that one in particular I thhough everybody was just beating a dead horse with the same joke on “counting sleep.”
Matty_r@programming.dev · 3 pts · 80d
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.
Sludgeyy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
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.
user_name@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
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.
Sludgeyy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
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.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 80d
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.
Sludgeyy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 80d
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.
Sabata11792@ani.social · 4 pts · 81d
Sounds like you will need to rotate a real cow while in international waters.
pseudo@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 80d
Well planning all this and executing it you won't have time to be bored.
gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 81d
Is this ableist? Doesn't seem prejudicial at all. /g
Telodzrum@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 81d
pseudo@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 80d
What does /g means?
osanna@lemmy.vg · 3 pts · 80d
My guess is /genuine
pseudo@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 80d
Thank you.
gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 80d
It means genuine, as in I'm asking a genuine question.
pseudo@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 80d
Thank you.
gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 80d
For reference: https://tonetaglist.carrd.co/
pseudo@jlai.lu · 2 pts · 80d
Oh nice! Thanks again.
gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 80d
No problem :D
fartographer@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
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!
NABDad@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 81d
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.
wuffah@lemmy.world · 47 pts · 81d
Why is the cow wearing a thong? :(
youcantreadthis@quokk.au · 28 pts · 81d
You'd rather it be naked that's fine you can rotate naked cows
Brickhead92@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 81d
Yo everybody! Get a load of this guy! His rotating mind cows are naked!
youcantreadthis@quokk.au · 6 pts · 81d
I assume there's a variety
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 81d
Mine is wearing a leather suit.
fartographer@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 80d
The Ed Gein of cows
MBech@feddit.dk · 9 pts · 81d
Because you want to bang your mom.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today · 12 pts · 81d
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 80d
575900
DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 80d
chattre@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 45 pts · 80d
as an aphantasiac I will literally describe the worst possible scene and you will be forced to picture it
and I will win
:3
rumba@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 80d
Yeah i'm like 80% aphantasiac, I can picture maybe the last time I saw a cow I, could probably imagine something else in the static scene, I can't even really make it turn it's head.
There's no rotating it.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 80d
All I got is dark gray static. No cows. The occasional moving blob of different dark gray static.
Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 80d
I can think about how a cow looks, colors, patters, what a cow might do but I can’t visualize anything. I didn’t know there was a word for this or that people could actually visualize things in their mind. I thought it was just a turn of phrase.
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 80d
That's conceptualizing.
Edit: for some reason i forgot the link. https://aphantasia.com/guide/
A better description of it with a ball experiment than i can provide.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 80d
Does this affect dreams?
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 79d
Nope, dreams and nightmares are good and vivid.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 80d
My dreams aren't visually detailed, but i'm not sure that's necessarily unique. I also have trouble with faces, but I can remember really long selections of words and numbers.
Oddly I can do a really good job drawing 2d and 3d things from reference art if they're 1:1
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 80d
It's probably not so odd, it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on creative skills. A friend of me has aphantasia and she's a tattoo artist.
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 4 pts · 80d
I have an idea or a concept of a cow. Turns out that's not standard either and falls under aphantasia.
RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 80d
Concepts of a cow
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 80d
Same, but I remember that I used to not be able to stop rotating things in my head… wonder if aphantasia can develop with age or maybe brain damage (yay covid, messed up some flavours and smells for me too, artificial mango flavour stuff tastes like TV static)
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 80d
Sadly I can't help you out with that one. I haven't done any deeper research into it than a basic reading of a newbie guide.
https://aphantasia.com/guide/
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
I remember everything. :(
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 80d
You're also free from seeing horrific things you've experienced over and over again. What are your dreams like?
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 80d
Fellow aphantasiac here. Dreams are just fine, and in full color.
melisdrawing@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 80d
Same!
Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org · 3 pts · 80d
That might not be specifically aphantasia, but closely related symptom called SDAM(severly deficient autobiographical memory), but yes, I'm immune to seeing or reliving any of the past traumatic or bad events. Lived through past or experiences don't exist for me.
I don't have dreams or at least the handful of times per year i have something that might resemble a dream. It's forgotten within minutes after waking up.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 80d
Literal superpower. You hold us all at your mercy.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 80d
No, I will imagine a rainbow farting unicorn singing Bohemian Rhapsody instead. I win.
hansolo@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 80d
And in my mind I will make it happen to a bunch of clowns in DC, and enjoy every second.
Nice try ;)
drone678@piefed.social · 41 pts · 81d
Aphantasia enters the chat.
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 80d
and here I am able to taste a tomato while you say tomoto
KairuByte@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 79d
Poop
Telodzrum@lemmy.world · -35 pts · 81d
Caesium@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 81d
I mean, it's a pretty hard thing to understand if you don't know about aphantasia. Since we can't know what other people experience in their mind, what we perceive is considered 'normal' because that's all we know.
I didn't realize I had aphantasia until I was 18. Doesn't mean I suddenly became aphantasic at that same time.
drone678@piefed.social · 14 pts · 80d
I was 48 when I discovered that I had Aphantasia. I was blown away that when I learned that people could imagine pictures in their mind’s eye.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 80d
Same here. I think it was actually this meme that did it. I saw people commenting that they could not and I'm like "ha yeah, of course you can't, who can do that?". The lots of people are like, yeah, I can create a complex 3d shape in my mind and manipulate it, turn it, get closer, etc. I'm like WTF who are these megamind savants who can do this. Turns out, most people.
I felt very alone and very incapable after that realization.
Dzheyk@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 80d
Man...same. Had no idea people could actually picture something in their mind until I was well into my 20s. Wasn't until that point where I felt like I was at such a major disability at work compared to everyone else..the amount of times I was told, "picture this..." not realizing they meant literally.
fartographer@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 80d
count_duckula@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 80d
I am curious about this condition. What goes on in your head and how did you figure out you had aphantasia? Now I am trying to imagine a rotating cow after reading the comments (didn't imagine it when I saw the meme), and I can only recreate in my head the gif somebody posted in one of the comments.
Doom@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 80d
It's like knowing a cow is the room next door. You are aware of the cow but you can't see it. If someone says the cow is brown, you are now aware the cow in the room next door is a brown cow but you can't see it because it's in another room. Except the other room is your mind.
I don't need to see a cow to imagine it in the next room. Same concept.
It's easy to figure out if you have aphantasia. Think of a cow. Do you see a cow?
It's not a condition or a disability, it's just a different way that some brains work. Don't fall into the trap of - it's outside the majority so it must be a deficiency. Most people with aphantasia don't even know they have it.
Also, strangely I can rotate a cow in my mind, but there is no visual feedback. I "feel" the cow rotating. I choose where in the physical space to project the imagined cow and there is the imagined "physical" sensation of the cow spinning as if it's an extension of my mind. I can imagine sound as well. But I don't see anything.
pseudo@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 80d
I have an easier time feel it moving that seeing it. But I can see it and I doesn't rotate on the same axe than all those GIF. The legs goes up until it is on its back then back where I can't see them and on its legs again.
Caesium@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
I got recommended a video that introduced the term to me and it was a very jarring realization.
Personally I've always struggled with expressing my thoughts in general. Before I learned about aphantasia I had started saying it was like I think in concepts instead of words or pictures. I know what I'm thinking and it's not like it's a vague idea, but for whatever reason actually translating it into a real language is really hard for me. I have an easier time writing out my thoughts than I do speaking them at least.
The most I can visualize are a few 'vivid' images that I spent a lot of time curating, usually from listening to music or remembering a dream I wrote down. Even then, When I try to think about those little exceptions, it's still only a tiny fraction of the whole image that I can really come up with. Thinking about it now, it's super weird to describe! I got super intro writing after I figured out I had aphantasia (shattered my hopes of being able to draw. But that doesn't mean aphantasic people can't draw. I just learned how to draw incorrectly and it screwed me over) and I like to think I'm decent at describing visuals despite all this.
To use the gif as an example, I can really only imagine the frame, moving images are practically impossible for me. And it's really only the sillohuete I can make out.
I also realized I'm face blind too, and part of me wonders how much that correlates to aphantasia
count_duckula@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 80d
I think I understand what you are saying. I have a hard time imagining scenes, especially when I am reading, and definitely not in any vivid detail. For example, there is a kitchen scene in a book I am currently reading. I vaguely picture the kitchen of the house from my childhood but that is pretty much all I can come up with. I don't think that is aphantasia, though.
DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 80d
It's always worth considering people who function differently, even if it's just a passing thought.
flandish@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 81d
representation matters.
InputZero@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 81d
While a prevalence of 0.8% may seem like a tiny amount but when applied to a large population it's a significant number of people. Let's say a city has a nice round 100,000 people, a small city by any measure. That's 800 people, not such a small number anymore. The lives of those 800 people are worth thinking about. Granted in the context of a larger population but it's still something.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 80d
For actual refence it's estimated that between 1% and 4% of people have either complete visual or auditorial aphantasia.
With a much larger percent of the world's population, having some sort of partial aphenasia. And a smaller percent having complete aphantasia of both types.
The disorder was only officially recognized in 2015. Has basically had no real research put into it outside of the last 10 years as well.
It's non-life impacting so rarely goes diagnosed if ever. And because it's so new, very few people know about it and go most if not their entire lives not realizing they have it.
I've seen some estimations putting it as high as 8 to 10% have complete of one type or the other. It's a lot more common than people realize. Especially because it's considered a gradient. The majority of cases are not complete lack but more commonly a middle ground. Such as the inability to picture, color rotation, shape, distinction. All audio typically is more along the lines of knowing or monologue or the inability to recall sounds in their head.
I'm one of the lucky few who has complete aphantasia of both types. I am unable to visualize anything. I have no inner monologue and I cannot recall sounds.
There's no static. There's no fuzz. There's no darkness there's nothing. It's just sort of empty. I recall most things through a conceptual connection to other things is the best way to describe it.
The only reason I even know that a inner vision is possible and what made me go down the rabbit hole to look into it. It's because I still dream. I understand that I have full visualization in my dreams but when I wake up it's empty. It's gone. I know I saw something but I cannot recall it. There's a complete lack of any visual memory.
It's very weird feeling. I tried to learn to lucid dream at one point as well and I came to the realization. The moment I realized I'm dreaming. Everything goes from visualize to pure darkness and then nothing. Exactly as if I'm awake. It's very trippy.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 80d
Its estimated that almost 95%+ of all cases of it go unnoticed or diagnosed. It was only officially recognized 10 years ago.
Its estimated that 1-4% of the population have complete audio or visual aphantasia. 1-2% have both and roughly 30% of the population has some level of partial. And these are conservative numbers.
And that's just based on the last few years of study of somethingt that most people don't even know exists, is non life impacting in a way to get people to speak out assistance. And thus goes mostly untalked about outside a few online circles for the most part.
Either way, if you just include people with complete visual alone that's still a fuck load of people.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 80d
How many people don't have any <1% conditions?
KairuByte@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 79d
I’m with you, blindness has a prevalence rate of 0.2%, fuck them no more image descriptions on Lemmy.
/s if it wasn’t obvious enough
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 80d
0.8% means I encounter roughly 1.5 - 2 people like this every two weeks. That's actually crazy.
kablez@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 81d
When I used to have to go to church as a kid, I'd imagine I was starting a new save file of Zelda Ocarina of Time. By the time mass was over I'd usually be up to one of the first rooms in the Great Deku Tree, in my head. It was only decades later I learned I was also autistic, but that's a story for another day!
tjsauce@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 80d
I did the same with watching Pulp Fiction and The Phantom Menace in church
RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 80d
Well... shit. That's what it was?
squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi · 25 pts · 81d
Widdershins@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 80d
chetradley@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 80d
That was the same cow I was just rotating.
Unstoppable_Flop@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 80d
Hey! Get your own cow!
voldage@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 80d
You wouldn't download a thought-cow
First_Thunder@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 81d
Traitorous people want to make you believe for some reason that YOU CAN do things WITHOUT your LOCAL CORPORATION knowing. TO USE such DANGEROUS things as IMAGINATION is ANTI AMERICAN, and is the attempt of ILLEGAL ALIENS to weaken the AMERICAN ECONOMY which is doing great, best it has ever been, yesterday a big economy, strong economy; beautiful economy, came down to me, tears down its eyes, thanking me, saying mister President, thank you so much for making me beautiful again, and I said of course I did, after SLOW POWEL got out, I was able to lower interest rates, devalue the dollar and FORCE AMERICAN FACTORIES back so that great products like most AMERICAN products can really SUCEED and BRING the AMERICAN DREAM BACK contrary to CHINA which is faltering, have you seen how mismanaged their real estate sector is, I could’ve done much better, cause I am a GENIUS and clearly I am amazing, did you see how I ACED MULTIPLE COGNITIVE TESTS, they asked me list these animals, and I said, it’s obvious, woman man person camera TV and the doctor, she speaking of XI, he’s an amazing leader who is making China great and TOLD ME that I PREVENTED AMERICAN DECLINE AND AM NOW ON ROUTE TO A GOLDEN AGE like my BALLROOM which is GOLDEN and TACTICAL, and SAFE just like our stock market IT IS RISING AND BETTER THAN EVER. THANK YOU FOR YOU ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER, PRESIDENT DONALD JOHNATHAN TRUMP
Gotta be honest, sleep deprivation really helps with these
waterbird@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 81d
i hate that i read this in his voice and it was flawless. 0/10, perfection.
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 81d
Am I supposed to assume a spherical cow?
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 17 pts · 81d
Yes. In a frictionless vacuum.
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 81d
With an ambient light source the same color as the cow and the background.
RedSeries@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 81d
Neither can the cow hehehehehehe
MuteDog@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 80d
I don't even have to close my eyes to do this
AshenSilver@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 80d
There is no cow level
Unstoppable_Flop@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 80d
Don't kill the king!
swiftywizard@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 80d
I have seen aphantasia mentioned many times but don't forget about hyperphantasia
pseudo@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 80d
Thank you for sharing.
I have a thing were I can imagine speech without having to imagine sounds. I don't know how to call that. That is some sort of quiet internal narration for my imagination that happened when I read a lot. When I watch a lot of movies, I end up imagining camera mouvement, like traveling and zoom in/out. It is like I can imagine vividly but the way my imagination express itself is out of my control and depend on my recent environnement.
swiftywizard@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 75d
I like to interpret the flow of imagination as a river that has impressions in it. I can play with that at will, be precise and specific or just observe what passes by, zoom out to a broader view. There is energy where is concentration. But if I am tired or bored and have to do repetitious tasks, it can be very distracting to dream away and I think this is important to consider for people that are creative. Many are diagnosed with ADHD or other conditions when they just haven't found out enough about themselves.
UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 80d
Me: Low chuckle
Mind police: "Hands up!"
gigastasio@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 81d
Why stop at cows?
comfy@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 80d
MithranArkanere@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 80d
That did not solve my boredom.
I made the cow walk upright, gave the cow a bardiche, made 665 more cows like that, and made them raid a village.
That was entertaining.
hansolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 80d
I like to give the cow a jaunty hat and galoshes! Then two men hatch from the cow.
ignotum@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 81d
"Don't have a cow, man!"
- Bart Simpsons, police officer
Microtonal_Banana@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 80d
This is very Zen. Im going to keep this.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 81d
Thanks for the very valuable tip, person whose name is Hot Diarrhea.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 81d
I just did it but the cops still stopped me for speeding with my eyes closed. Does not work 👎
NABDad@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 81d
Is the mind cow merely rotating in air, or must I imagine myself picking it up and rotating it physically? If I'm imagining physically rotating the cow, am I imagining exertion, or should I be imagining that I have super human strength?
In what plane should I rotate it?
Is the cow in a field or in a barn? Or is it in an empty void?
If I'm physically rotating the cow, how am I dressed? Am I wearing my normal attire, or am I dressed like a dairy farmer? How does a dairy farmer dress? Is the cow wearing any clothing?
Can I choose what season I imagine the cow rotating in, or must it be the current season?
I have so many questions and now I'm even more bored than I was before!
meekah@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 81d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy8moBcKVIM
svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 80d
The problem with this approach is that I will sooner or later imagine the cow as a cube. A cowube, if you will.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 80d
Blasphemer! The one true cow is Tetrahedragon Cow (3 reasons: first it's made of triangles and you can't beat triangles. Just ask particle cow. Second I forget number two but number three is that there's a dragon in there)
dan1101@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 81d
That is udderly ridiculous.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 80d
They can't stop you yet...
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 81d
POLICE!!! DROP THAT COW NOW AND NOBODY NEEDS TO GET HURT!!!!
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 80d
RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 81d
Billionares are on it. Soon they will have the means to make spinning in your mind in to a subscription.
Asafum@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 81d
If you imagine a brown cow and then imagine shaking it you can have even more fun thoughts about fresh chocolate milkshakes!
...That is how it works, right?
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 80d
Yet with NSPM-7 they're allowed to investigate you if you appear to hold anti-american, anti-capitalist, anti-family, anti-traditional values or extreme ideas om race, gender, etc...
So, effectively, they can investigate you for thought crimes now.
Case in point this was 2 posts down in my feed lol
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-28/trump-s-doj-ramps-up-probes-of-anonymous-ice-critics-with-x-reddit-subpoenas