Comment on Who here does NOT have intrusive thoughts?

• ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Like most folk with aphantasia, I thought that people talking about “seeing things in their imagination” were just being dramatic and using common language. It never occurred to me that they could genuinely see things in their minds. And the whole thing where people would be upset when a character in a TV show or movie didn’t look like how they’d imagined they would look, never made sense to me. And shows where people could recall the details of peoples faces for police sketch artists…

  Basically, moments like that started adding up over my life, and then about 10 years ago, I read an article from someone who had discovered they had aphantasia through a similar path, and it all just fell in to place.

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  • Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    And the lack of internal monologue? How is that experienced? Do you know what you’re going to say before you say it, or is it simultaneous? How do you problem-solve, can you ask yourself questions?

    I’m sorry if I’m being obnoxious, I’m just terribly curious. I’m always hungry for experiences outside my own.

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    • ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I can think of words, I just don’t think I’m words. And when I think of a word I can run them together in a sentence. But they have no “sound”. They don’t have volume or pitch, they don’t sound like anyone, they’re just the idea of words. And because the words are after the fact, they don’t exist without me willing them in to existence. So no monologue in the way people describe it, and the idea of a conversation in my head doesn’t make sense. It would be more like writing a script for a conversation

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      • galanthus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        That’s interesting, I myself can sometimes think without a monologue. I did it just now, and I am not sure if I do not use words, but I do not actually hear them, but I know the thoughts are there somehow. It often happens on its own when I have a lot of thoughts at the same time or think really fast about something.

        But usually I talk to myself in my head, this is either a monologue or a sort of dialogue, and I often tell myself to shut up out loud when no one is around. I also imagine music, and I can enjoy it this way, and I do so pretty accurately. I play by ear.

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      • galanthus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        I am sorry for the questions, this is really interesting.

        What about maths? How do you do geometry? Do you have to have a drawing or can you manage without it? How do you understand geometry if you can’t see it’s objects?

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  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    How does one read books without reading them out loud? Is that not a form of internal monologue?

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    • ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      The words have no sound. No volume, no pitch. They’re word ideas not words. I don’t hear anything, I just understand the words.

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      • galanthus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        And what happens when you read a description of something? Do you just have an idea of what it is, because if so, it seems to me that some of the value of literature will be lost. Do you actually feel anything when you read a description of something beautiful, for instance?

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    • galanthus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Interestingly enough, silent reading was historically uncommon due to the fact that literature was less common than it is now and, most importantly, the lack of separation between words.

      The ability to read silently was considered very unusual.

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