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If you have a moment - nothing to do with diabetes.

There is no Spoon

There is no Spoon

Well-Known Member
Messages
806
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi everyone thanks for taking a look, this is nothing important just satisfying my curiosity.
I discovered recently I have Aphantasia. It's supposed to be rare 4% of the population the inability to voluntarily visualize mental images.

The diagram shows it best if your asked to close your eyes and imagine an apple.
1 is hyper-Aphantasia where you can see it so vividly you can changes its colour to green or rotate it on the spot etc... Aphantasia_apple_test.png

I'm a 5.
Just curious where are you on the scale?

OK now here's where it gets interesting, for me at least. {and this blown my mind even more that Aphantasia did}
It turns out, after reading a few medical articles, that all you 1-4 out there can remember in the other "5 senses" as well.

Imagining an ocean - to some degree - you can remember/imagine the sound of waves, smell the salt air, feel the warms of the sun or the cold breeze and taste the ice-cream.

I know things.
I know what an Apple is but can't visualise one.
I know what is like to visualise things I do dream - that uses a different part of the brain.
I know the music I like - but when I remember a song I hear the lyrics but not the instruments.
I know Ice-cream is cold but I can't imagine eating it and feeling that it is cold or remembering what Chocolate mint chip tasted like.
I know how something feels Oranges are squishy but I have no memory of it.
I can not remember or imagine how food smells or how it tastes.
I love to cook I know what flavours go together.


This is supposedly a rare case of the rare case of Aphantasia a lack of sensory memory 0.8% of the population . I've lived my whole life not knowing this and it makes not real difference in to me I have never known anything else.

Speaking to people about this one of the first questions they ask is how do you read a book if you cant visualise what's going on? I just do. I love reading again it comes back to knowing rather than imagining I can never hold the description of any character in my head.

Getting to my point, it needed the background context so this question did not sound weird.
When you watch a cooking show can you imagine how a meal smells or tastes?

Thanks for dropping in and hopefully sharing.
:bag:
 
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How interesting. I think I must be a 1! I can imagine the apple then turn it to whatever colour or size or shape I like in my head, even colours not usually associated with apples normally. I can see a blue apple for instance, I can grow it in size or change its shape or rotate it through any plane!
This is all something I’ve never thought about.

Edit for typo
 
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Rachox said:
I think I must be a 1! I can imagine the apple then turn the it to whatever colour or size or shape I like
Click to expand...
That sounds like the definition of hyper-Aphantasia. When I close my eyes all I see is the back of my eyelids.

Are you able to utilise any of the other senses when imagining anything?
Just curious.
:bag:
 
Ha, this is interesting. I don’t have to close my eyes to see an apple. If I imagine it I can see it whether my eyes are open or closed. I can utilize all my senses. I can smell the apple, feel it and taste it. I can hear myself eating it . Funny, because I have no external imagination, but I do have a vast internal imagination.

This might be something totally different, but I also have face blindness. Unless I’m seeing you everyday I will not recognize you, unless I can pin a noticeable feature on you. I don’t think it’s prosopagnosia, I think it’s because I tend not to look anyone in the eye, or the face for that matter. It translates into doing very badly in those tests where you look at peoples eyes and guess what emotion they are expressing. I get at least 1/3 of them wrong. I have to analyze the eyes, it’s not a natural process.
 
Melgar said:
I have no external imagination
Click to expand...
Now that is interesting.

Didn't know this was a thing just looked it up; are you able to, sticking with an Apple, imagine it with your eyes open sitting on a desk and moving to a chair etc... that would implied external imagination.

Faces I can't visualise you when your not here.
I would be useless as a witness in a cop show talking to the sketch artist.

Getting back to your ability to utilize your other senses @Melgar.
My favourite show is MasterChef Australia new season just started, and it occurred to me, if you can imagine with your other senses, can you imagine smelling or tasting the food on a cooking show?

Sticking with the Apple motif can you imagine smelling & tasting a fresh out of the oven cinnamon apple pie with butter scotch ice cream
If so I am so jealous. ( without the resentment part.)
:bag:

P.s its so fascinating when you find out the rest of the world does not think like you. And you never knew.
 
Yes, I can smell cinnamon apple pie, but it is an abstract smell if that makes sense.
As for external imagination, I don’t think seeing something with eyes open indicates external imagination as I cannot translate it into a format that others can read or see. It’s stuck in my own mind, so to me that makes it internal. ;)
 
I'm a 1 and also a 1 in other senses too. Smell and taste are the strongest for me. I have to walk away from some TV programmes where they are eating food I don't like as if I stay around I am physically sick. Sound is possibly just a 2, but as a child I was hyper vigilant and could tell my parents that someone was walking to our door seconds before the dog got his hackles upand started growling. I may have learnt to stop recalling sounds so strongly since then. Can't have been good for my cortisol levels!
 
Melgar said:
As for external imagination, I don’t think seeing something with eyes open indicates external imagination
Click to expand...
I will bow to your experience I didn't even know it was a thing I had to google it.
But it is the type of thing you see in movies all the time.

As with many things I just put it up to Its a visual medium and they have to convey it some how.

Abstract smell makes perfect sense thanks @Melgar.
:bag:
 
zand said:
I'm a 1 and also a 1 in other senses too. Smell and taste are the strongest for me. I have to walk away from some TV programmes where they are eating food I don't like as if I stay around I am physically sick
Click to expand...
That fascinating @zand it didn't stop to consider the obvious down side of "smell-a-vision".

Do you have any control over it or is it completely involuntary?
I.e. The try not to think of a of a pink rhinoceros scenario. OR if it helps the end of Ghostbusters choose your own destroyer conundrum. ;)
:bag:
 
There is no Spoon said:
That fascinating @zand it didn't stop to consider the obvious down side of "smell-a-vision".

Do you have any control over it or is it completely involuntary?
I.e. The try not to think of a of a pink rhinoceros scenario. OR if it helps the end of Ghostbusters choose your own destroyer conundrum. ;)
:bag:
Click to expand...
It's involuntary. The only control I have is to look away and cover my ears.

As a very young child I loved to eat eggs. Then when I was around 6 or 7 I went off them completely. I hate the taste, smell and texture of them now. Yet I can remember the taste and smell and remember that I liked eggs and I can appreciate that good memory, knowing they were nice to eat; but at the same time I know that the same taste and smell is abhorrent to me now. How's that for weird lol?

I think it's down to my parents cooking and eating chitterlings when I was around 6 and I understood what they were and the smell was absolutely awful. I couldn't get within 100 yards of the house without throwing up, I'm close to it now just thinking about it. In fact, I've had to type this in 4 tiny stages...nope, 5, I can smell that smell now.
Just been sick lol
 
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