/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11886534]

when reading philosophy i often imagine myself in an aristocratic russian academy in the mountains reading aloud to an aged and stern professor who will periodically ask me challenging questions to make sure i have fully understood the text.
>mfw non-internal-monologuers will never know how useful this is
>mfw ahyperphantasics will never be able to do this
>mfw instantly a step above all of you plebs effortlessly

[Anonymous No.11886546]

>>11886534
I liked the picture you painted with your words, OP, it was comfy.

[Anonymous No.11886625]

now that's what I call based

[Anonymous No.11886644]

>>11886534
>tfw aphantasia, my only experience of a book is of the words I see on the page

[Anonymous No.11886676]

>>11886644
dont worry, you probably have less capacity for despair than most people anyway

[Anonymous No.11886698]

>>11886534
>ahyperphantasics
The fuck is this? I know what an aphantasic is, but what the fuck is a hyper aphantasic?

[Anonymous No.11886706]

>>11886534
Thanks for the idea OP, I'm going to start doing this too

[Anonymous No.11886715]

>>11886644
Hold on, when people imagine something can they see it clearly or is it just an agglomeration of colours and shapes that sort of look like that thing?

[Anonymous No.11886729]

>>11886698
its a hyperphantastic you dumb brainlet

[Anonymous No.11886742]

>>11886715
From what I've read, imagination varies wildly between people. People with hyperphantasia (as shown in the OP), for example, can supposedly visualise well enough that they may as well be looking at a film in their head. Aphantasic people can't visualise anything at all - we can't get songs "stuck in our heads", we don't internally voice any of our thoughts, and honestly it sounds ridiculous to us that people can conceptualise anything at all when it isn't in front of them.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle. So, one person I spoke to said they imagine in a kind of "colourless wireframe" while others say they can near enough actually see their imagination, but specific details of any picture they think of aren't actually there until they try to focus on it.

TL;DR: it varies a lot from person to person.

[Anonymous No.11886823]

>>11886742
Then I guess I'm on the lower side of the imagination spectrum. I can imagine things well enough that I know what I'm thinking of, but I couldn't for the life of me make solid, consistent representations.

[Anonymous No.11886835]

>>11886823
If you can visualise a little, there are exercises you can take to strengthen and develop your imagination further.

[Anonymous No.11886841]

>>11886534
>reducing the efficiency of your reading and knowledge intake to daydream
>believing this makes you patrician

[Anonymous No.11886846]

>>11886715
most of the time i just imagine dirty things.

[Anonymous No.11886871]

>>11886841
this, completely visualizing can be a very inefficient method because you're basing the limit of your interpretation on yourself. arguably, the inverse is far more effective for interpretation alongside mental ordering.

[Anonymous No.11886879]

>>11886715
I dont visualize anything, but rather just know what I'm thinking about if that makes sense. Like I can think about a beach or mountains or some series of events but I dont actually see them in my head. I can also switch off my mind and think about nothing at all. I also have huge problems with saying stuff on impulse that offends people which is related to this inability to think. Its like everything just comes from my subconsciousness and I cant analyze it.

[Anonymous No.11886884]

>>11886742
>>11886823
Are you even human? How can you not visualize something in your head with perfect clarity? I think even monkeys have imagination.
I can, and I assume most normal people can, produce perfect photographic images in my mind when thinking of something. Same with sounds, smells, tastes, or other sensations. Everything you see is literally just created by your mind, influenced by the information collected by your perceptory organs, so if nothing was wrong with you, you would be able to perfectly replicate those perceptions with your imagination. For me it is literally as real as it is in real life. Honestly I cannot even fathom having no imagination whatsoever. If you asked me to think of anything, for example a mountain, I would be able to call upon thousands of images of mountains in my memory, as well as an infinite amount of imagined mountains, and be able to describe every minute detail of each one, down to the last rock or patch of snow. I'm astonished that there are people who would just draw a blank if asked to conceptualize something. That seems inhuman.

[Anonymous No.11886891]

>>11886534

[Anonymous No.11886901]

>>11886835
How do I do that desu pls tell me

[Anonymous No.11886906]

>>11886884
>Same with sounds, smells, tastes, or other sensations.
See, I have no problem with any of those, but images come out as colours, squiggly lines and questionable shapes. I'm kind of like >>11886879 except I can produce rough images if I try hard enough.
What does it mean if I can reproduce anything but images? I have bad vision. Could that be a factor?

[Anonymous No.11886913]

>>11886742
>one person I spoke to said they imagine in a kind of "colourless wireframe"
holy fucking shit that sounds terrifying
the npc meme is real

[Anonymous No.11886924]

>>11886906
>images come out as colours, squiggly lines and questionable shapes
That's really interesting desu. It's hard for me to imagine someone imagining something and it coming out as just amorphous shapes. When I have trouble visualizing something, the parts I have trouble with become sort of "blank spots," e.g. I visualized an apple, then the apple falling over, but I didn't know the right proportions for viewing the underside of the apple, so it faded away a little for an instant, and the apple's height from my new perspective became a bit shaky.

[Anonymous No.11886946]

>>11886884
Is this why people get upset over gore or other shocking content?
t. aphantastic

[Anonymous No.11886949]

>>11886924
Not that guy just giving my input. When I try my hardest ti visualize something, the best I can do is catch a short glimpse of the form, shape and colour. I never seem to be able to hold the image in my mind for longer than a split second. I can also never bring a clear image from memory, the only images I can see in my mind are fabrications. It's frustrating desu.

[Anonymous No.11886957]

>>11886924
>so it faded away a little for an instant, and the apple's height from my new perspective became a bit shaky
This is what I mean. I get an agglomeration of colours etc that vaguely resembles a thing, and then it kind of just fades in and out and "blinks", so I have to concentrate on keeping it stable.

[Anonymous No.11886962]

>>11886884
yeah, it felt pretty bad when i learned that most other people can actually synthesise experiences in their minds. I've since accepted that. If it makes you feel special, you should know that most people can't imagine with your level of detail/scope. It sounds like you're on the hyperphantasiac side of the imagination spectrum. So, pat yourself on the back for that!

>>11886901
Just search "improve visualisation" or "imagination strengthening techniques" et cetera. There are lots of resources out there, so it's just a matter of finding whichever techniques work best for you.

>>11886906
There isn't a whole lot of research out there about visualisation yet. Anecdotally, quite a few people come to aphantasia forums with a similar description - that they can imagine one or several other senses, but struggle to visualise. It would make sense that, if you can imagine sensations fine, that detailed images would be the only thing you struggle with. I'd assume it's as easy for the brain to imagine the smell of chocolate as it is for it to imagine the colour brown, but asking for a whole scene is obviously way more complex. You might be able to benefit from imagination strengthening techniques (I can't actually vouch for any though, as they always require some imagination to begin with).

>>11886946
I had pretty awful OCD (including the stereotypical germaphobia along with it) as a kid, yet I never understood why people would be disgusted by the mere description of something gross. I guess imagination, if you have it, isn't always a concious act.

[Anonymous No.11886964]

>>11886957
Yep, same for me, if I concentrate on keeping an image it my mind it becomes so hard that it gets physically taxing.

[Anonymous No.11886973]

> have Socratic dialects with characters or authors I construct in my mind based off what I read
> do this with certain /lit/ posters who have a tell to them

[Anonymous No.11886987]

>>11886884

[Anonymous No.11887062]

>>11886973
I imagine BTFOing Ape of Toth first in a grand debate with everyone in the agora crowding around to hear, and then with my fist splintering his skull once his veneer of an "intellectual" is shatter and he lunges at me in his animal rage

[Anonymous No.11887175]

>>11886715
I think in spoken dialogue most of the time, just like if you heard someone monologue to you. What happens if I need to use more than common sense or basic dialogue is I just "turn off" my vision. I've been told my eyes dart around sporadically when in this mindset. What happens is I get into this state where I process external information just long enough to forget it the next quarter second.

I get these very unfocused images in my head regarding whatever it is I'm thinking about. It isn't fuzzy or distorted or with noise, but simply lacking any sharpness, to explain it with photo editing terminology. Often times when I'm reading a book I do this. When it's a philosophical or political concept, I can see a very specific man sitting in a lounge chair with his right ankle over his left knee, leaning on his right arm, all against a featureless pure white backdrop. I can't make out his face, but my best guess is some mix between Don Draper and Adam Levine. He discusses with me the idea I hold, I play doubles advocate to retort my belief, he brings counterpoints. We change our position on the ideas we argue for multiple times to avoid getting stuck on baby duck syndrome. When I am forced to transition to perceiving reality again, there's a good 3 to 5 seconds where absolutely nothing goes through my head and I don't remember anything in that timespan.
People often worry about me when they experience this transition, I tell them I was thinking, but never the details of this. If I'm doing anything mundane, I'll go into this mindset as well, putting myself in a position of some nobody in a fiction story. Something like a stormtrooper in star wars or an audience member in a roman colosseum. I write all college essays in this mindset. They tend to be rambling and cite no sources, I add these sources in later. I went through this mindset writing this post, but instead of deleting like I normally do to avoid a few tl;dr replies, I'll post it in case there's someone out there with something like this or if it's a thing that's existed and I can find a way to work with it instead of letting it have control over me. I can't talk like this at all, which is a good thing since I would appear autistic, even though I've been tested 3 times and don't fall anywhere on a spectrum.

[Anonymous No.11887540]

That's actually a good idea to see if you understand something you just read. Usually I just have a dialogue with myself.