How do I read books?

[Anonymous No.20959161]

Alright /lit/ I'm an artist with very bad visualization (5% opacity) and was recommended to read fiction books to improve it.
Picked up a light novel from the bookstore and started reading it, but I can only finish around one page before I put it down and start browsing 4chan again.
It's a great book with a great story, I loved the anime, so it's not the story at issue. I just never read a book in my life so I'm having trouble reading it.
Any advice?

[Anonymous No.20959176]

Don't buy into the idea that you need mental visualization for art. All of this "you need visualization to do X" just comes from people who personally have visualization and therefore assume that everyone needs it.
>Any advice?
Get off 4chan, away from the computer

[Anonymous No.20959179]

Don't buy into the idea that you need mental visualization for art. All of this "you need visualization to do X" just comes from people who personally have visualization and therefore assume that everyone needs it. Difference in visualization ability only came into the public consciousness in the last 10-15 years and right away it is pathologized. It's some sick shit, appreciate your mind as it is.

[Anonymous No.20959181]

>>20959161
Why even bother with art when ai is about to replace you anyway?

[Anonymous No.20959184]

sorry for the double post I thought my captcha had failed

[Anonymous No.20959202]

>>20959181
Not the anon but self expression is not touched by ai.

[Anonymous No.20959207]

>>20959179
Oh, yeah thanks maybe you're right but I still would like to improve my visualization.
I grew up reading comics so never had the chance to build up my imagination since comics don't require it.
I would like to be able to imagine wild animated movies in my head while I read. Most anons seem to be able to do it and I don't want to be the odd one out.
Some anons can even close their eyes and vividly imagine their surroundings and navigate through, sounds like a lot of fun. I plan to start reading more fiction works to get inspiration too.

[Anonymous No.20959223]

Turn your phone off or put it somewhere out of the way and read. Ideally somewhere quiet.
At first set yourself a goal for how long you want to read, start small (20 - 30 mins). After that have a break for a few minutes and see if you want to read more.
It's gonna be slow going, might take months before you feel comfortable reading for extended amounts of time. Good luck, friend.

[Anonymous No.20959422]

>>20959161
The only time I got a flow in reading was with Michael Connelly novels, read 5-10 novels in less than a year I think.

[Anonymous No.20959690]

Aphantasia doesn't exist. It's an Internet phenomenon jumpstarted by very dubious research. Don't waste your time worrying about this.

[Anonymous No.20959698]

>>20959690
Bullshit

[Anonymous No.20959704]

>>20959161
Get used to the process of taking notes while you read. Also try putting your phone somewhere out of reach if you are already somewhere other than home like a bookstore.

[Anonymous No.20959744]

>>20959698
Your subreddit is a tumblr cult of self-diagnosed snowflakes and your "science" lacks a theoretical basis. If this crap is even replicable, because the jury is out on that too. Physical correlates of mental visualization have been searched for since at least the mid 2000s and the results have been underwhelming.

[Anonymous No.20959767]

>>20959744
Can you post some of that research. I'm not the person you responded to, but I have long assumed that I at least potentially have aphasia. Some seem to insist that their visualizations are a lot more vivid than I have ever been able to affect.

[Anonymous No.20959846]

>>20959767
Look up VVIQ Instructions (the standard test for aphantasia). There's an obvious problem with the external validity of this tool: does it actually measure what it's supposed to measure (the instructions consist of metaphors for fuck's sake)? A solid argument in favor of this would be if different responses to this test correlated with real physiological measurements, and this has been all over the place. One study shows correlation with visual cortex activity, another does not. No better performance on any task, like mental rotation, memory etc. (you should definitely expect SOME competence to be affected, so far there's nothing). There's a study that showed greater galvanic skin response in response to reading horror stories (even if that wasn't an accident, there's a bunch of different ways to explain this result than just "the mental images were scary"). It's just a fad fuelled by the perverted incentives of phychological research, just like behavioral priming was. It's extremely interesting to pop-science consuming normies and that just adds to the noise. Look up Schwitzgebel's work on introspection if you want to get a better critical understanding of the issues surrounding this type of studies.

[Anonymous No.20959887]

Are you on """""meds"""""? They give you brain damage and ruin your ability to visualize.

[Anonymous No.20959906]

>>20959846
By this logic, no subjective internal experiences exist. There's no study 'proving' you can visualize things, therefor it's a just delusion.

[Anonymous No.20959942]

>>20959906
I don't think denying that denying a claimed paradigm of visualization without certain evidence commits him to denying visualization or subjective internal experiences more broadly.

[Anonymous No.20959954]

>>20959161
There are multiple ways of doing it, consider that books are like people. It is not like there is a single way of interacting with them.

[Anonymous No.20960083]

>>20959942
>I don't think denying that denying a claimed paradigm of visualization without certain evidence commits him to denying visualization or subjective internal experiences more broadly.

The VVIQ is not a standard test for aphantasia, it's a standard test to rate the whole range of visualization. If you toss it out, (that paradigm) you have to admit that the whole thing is flawed, including the normal results that say people can visualize.

He does not do this, which makes his claims absurd. Instead he accepts the results which accord with his own subjective experience and confirmation bias while denying denying the results he doesn't like.

I imagine there were people who denied things like dyslexia and ADHD at first too.

[Anonymous No.20960280]

>>20960083
>The VVIQ is not a standard test for aphantasia
All research that purports to support the claim that aphantasia is real relies on the construct measured by the VVIQ. You have no idea what you're talking about.
>If you toss it out, (that paradigm) you have to admit that the whole thing is flawed, including the normal results that say people can visualize. He does not do this, which makes his claims absurd.
If I toss out the VVIQ (deny its external validity), that means I deny that people can visualize? Wew laddie, you're really confused.
>Instead he accepts the results which accord with his own subjective experience and confirmation bias while denying denying the results he doesn't like.
Nice projection, but you got the burden of proof reversed.
>I imagine there were people who denied things like dyslexia and ADHD at first too.
You are from that subreddit, aren't you?

[Anonymous No.20960356]

>>20959207
What is wrong with you? lol. You’re not an artist and never can be one.

[Anonymous No.20960359]

>>20960280
>If I toss out the VVIQ (deny its external validity), that means I deny that people can visualize? Wew laddie, you're really confused.
Then what scientific evidence proves to you that visualization exists?
>Nice projection, but you got the burden of proof reversed.
Why is that?
>You are from that subreddit, aren't you?
This is the real reason you object to it. You've somehow linked aphantasia to culture war bullshit. Since it's claimed by 'snowflakes' and 'normies' from reddit or tumblr, you feel compelled to deny it exists.

How do you feel about climate change?

[Anonymous No.20960495]

>>20960359
>Irrelevant distracting questions
>Implying a bunch of baseless conjectures
Why don't you go back to my claim, understand it, write it in your own words and try to refute it? Do that or stop wasting my time.

[Anonymous No.20960506]

>>20959846
I have complete aphantasia, I cannot generate any imagines in my mind or even colors. 100% blank black screen all of the time.

[Anonymous No.20960510]

>>20960506
No one can literally generate an imagine. You imagine it, mostly from memory.

[Anonymous No.20960557]

If you cant visualize you are literally an animal and not a human being

[Anonymous No.20960603]

>>20960510
No difference here, if I try to "remember" a cat there is genuinely 0 visual component to it even if I try to create it.

[Anonymous No.20960614]

>>20959161
>someone says apple
>"visualistas" automatically assume the apple is red and shiny and just presume details that nobody even mentioned
I seriously hope you guys don't do this.

[Anonymous No.20960622]

>>20960506
I claim that if you really think about this hard enough, you'll see that the question is simply vague and you can answer anything from 1-5, depending on how you understand it. What color is your front door? What material is it made of? How's the texture? Go through the list of every detail you can think of. Were all these details somehow connected or are you answering these questions in separation? Connected how? Did you bring about the door as if from a certain perspective/POV? Did you move that POV around or did you keep it stationary? If these questions make sense, why not call it an image, it feels right, doesn't it? The longer and harder you work on constructing the image of your door, do you still feel like the answer is a definite 1?

[Anonymous No.20960633]

>>20960557
this but the opposite. If you can't think about things in the abstract, but instead need to picture a concrete example you are of a lower consciousness.

Imagine being asked to count to 10 and you need to visualize each of your fingers to get there.

see
>>20960614

[Anonymous No.20960707]

>>20960622
I can remember the color of my front door is red, in the sense of I remember what date my birthday is, but I cannot create the color of a red door in my mind no matter how hard I try.

[Anonymous No.20960850]

>>20960707
>I cannot create the color of a red door in my mind no matter how hard I try
How would a 20ft white door look like at night, illuminated by extremely bright, alternating blue and red lights, as if a giant police car was parked in front of it? You've never seen that, did you? If you can answer that, how the hell do you know? Do you calculate hexadecimal numbers and output the RGB? Do you calculate the angular velocity of the police lights and work out the timing of the light show? Or do you just fucking "see it" with your mind's eye? That's what everyone means by that.

Of course if you don't agree, then we can talk past each other like that till we're fed up. But that would be a reason to be more, not less skeptical about whatever is in other people's heads when they imagine things. Maybe you've somehow got duped that there are skills you don't have, when in fact nobody has them. By the way, what color was the police car again?

[Anonymous No.20960885]

>>20960850
are you trying to argue that in fact, nobody can visualize anything?

[Anonymous No.20960937]

>>20960885
I'll gladly answer your question when you explain precisely what you mean by "visualize", just so we know that we're referring to the same thing.

[Anonymous No.20961236]

>artist
>bad visualization
How?

[Anonymous No.20961270]

>>20960603
So what do you "see" when you remember a cat. Just its name?

Here's an exercise. Try to imagine something you have never seen. Like an apple, but a green one and then imagine that its cut with a knife in half.

Remember you don't have to actually "see" a picture here as if its happening irl. Just close your eyes and IMAGINE

[Anonymous No.20961303]

>>20959161
I'm basically Level 5 on that chart for most of my waking life. Obviously I can conceptualize things like if you told me to imagine a "Yellow School Bus" then of course I know what you're talking about, but I cannot vividly see it in my mind, EXCEPT... and this would be my advice to you - when I'm I go to bed for sleep, and I'm in between the state of waking and sleeping, or at least trying to get to sleep. Doesn't even need to be that deep, it's not dreaming because I'm definitely still awake. At that point, I can vividly imagine and visualize objects and things in great detail and usually color. I also have some of my best ideas for writing when I get in this state.

I would advise you to try to get into this state around bedtime. Just relax as if you were trying to sleep like normal, but when you feel yourself getting close, try to think of an object and see if it helps. That's what works for me anyway. My wife says she can see Level 1 or at least Level 2 during normal waking hours, and we're pretty similar psychologically speaking, so who knows what the secret sauce is?

[Anonymous No.20961510]

>>20959161
By reading.

[Anonymous No.20961565]

>>20959161
I can't believe anons here can't imagine. I have an entire galactic scale shonen anime going on inside my head.

[Anonymous No.20961568]

this entire topic is rife with gaslighting

[Anonymous No.20961574]

>>20959161
This whole aphasia thing is a meme. Just stop beinga addicted to screens and read more and think more and your visualisation will return. I trained mine ti the point I can almost project it over my sight when I close my eyes and I used to have a hard time holding the entire apple at once.

[Anonymous No.20961578]

As long as you understand what you are reading, it really doesn't matter if you can see it or not.

[Anonymous No.20962054]

>>20961270
I tell you what a cat looks like because I know all the parts that it has by memory, whiskers, a tail, etc... There is no visual component whatsoever to it even if I try to force it, same with apple example.

[Anonymous No.20962090]

Check out r/CureAphantasia.

[Anonymous No.20962104]

>>20961574
OP here. Projecting vision over your eyelids is different from visualization apparently. I have been researching aphantasia for awhile on 4chan and imagination is located different from on your eyelids.
I can also project images over my eyelids with my eyes closed, only at night, but I have no control over it. You can control your imagination/visualization so it's different.
I can for example fully animate Suzumiya Haruhi doing the Hare Hare Yukai dance in my head, at 5% opacity. I can also do advanced animations and backflips but I won't be able to trace it frame by frame, because I have no idea where the lines are. It's too abstract/vague.
I need to be able to trace my images. If I could go from 5% opacity to 50% opacity then I will easily surpass AI, it's just that useful imo.
Right now I can't even trace my rotated cubes.

[Anonymous No.20962108]

0% apple

[Anonymous No.20962129]

>>20959161
Just fucking read the book, it's really not that hard. You overestimate the importance of visualization when it comes to reading and you're just seemingly forcing yourself to read a book for no reason. Ultimately being able to picture what goes on in a book is a very small portion of understanding it. Focus more on themes and symbolism (although most garbage books don't care about those). If you lack the discipline or passion to get through a novel then maybe literature just isn't for you. Also reading a book you know that you know is good, you will like, or has cultural significance is better than reading whatever garbage you just randomly found in a bookstore.
Usually we tell people to start with the Greeks (or at least we used to before the board went to shit) but I recommend starting with one of the shorter classic novels that might pique your interest like The Stranger, The Lord of the Flies, The Metamorphosis, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, or The Catcher in the Rye. Some of those you may have read in school and for a good reason. These novels are all fairly short, decently paced, and can provoke a lot of thinking and discussion.

[Anonymous No.20962141]

>>20959161
Your problem isn't aphantasia. You're just a low attention span dopamine addict, like most people these days. Put your phone down, browse the internet only at a particular time of the day for some time, exercise and meditate, and start "living in the moment". Get your mind off of the addiction to constant stimulation, and learn to just sit in a particular place without feeling restless. After that, anyone can properly focus and visualize.

[Anonymous No.20962156]

>>20959161
Do you mistake the phenomena for the thing-it-self often?

[Anonymous No.20962169]

>>20962156
If he can barely read a book I don't think he's going to have a single damn clue what the hell any of that is. But perhaps it is time for him to awaken from his dogmatic slumber.

[Anonymous No.20962262]

>>20959161
>How do I read books?
With your eyes.

[Anonymous No.20962267]

>>20962104
I'm saying my visualisation is so vivid i can ease into projection. It's simply retraining your mind. There are these exercises you can do. They're effective with a partner but i just recorded myself where you describe in as much detail out loud what you are imagining.

[Anonymous No.20962275]

>>20962267
Our brains are incredibly trainable. It is why we are the dominant species and consciousness no other animals that have been taught to speak can even ask questions like "Why?"