SolarMonkey

I don’t have a minds eye for something to fade from, so that question doesn’t really make sense to me. I have my eyes and then when I close my eyes it’s either black or eyelid colored, nothing else, and I’m super unclear what seeing things in your mind is supposed to be like. Tho I do have super-vivid visual dreams these days (which did not happen until my late 20s, but aren’t at all uncommon for people with aphantasia) and because I only have open-eye sight and these dreams that seem totally real, I frequently have to ask people if things actually happened. It’s very disconcerting, but my understanding is that dreams are not really the same as waking minds eye anyway.

Rather than a visual representation, I’ll have a verbal description ready as soon as I see an item. So for the ball example, I’d know the ball is “small, about the size of a plum, solid pink somewhere between neon and intense salmon, smooth matte texture, looks like it might be foam”. It probably serves the same function as a visual representation, although perhaps with a bit more required specificity. I don’t really describe things to myself unless I need to, though, so I guess my thinking is sort of abstract. I know the traits something has, and can recall them, but typically don’t explicitly list them unless I’m describing for someone else.

One perk of this is I’m great at describing things I’ve seen or made up, a downside is I’m terrible when people describe things to me. Since I’ve never seen the thing being described, it is a super arbitrary list of usually non-specific features and I don’t care at all. I skip clothing descriptions in books, for example. Don’t care. But when I describe things, even made up things, I’ll run through a list of the features it needs as a minimum to be the object for my mind, which is usually vivid detail for others, as the ball example above.

Idk if I see things differently eyes-open, I don’t really think so, but that’s always been a curiosity of mine since there’s literally no way to know what other people see. I have mild impairments as a result of not being able to visualize, like I’m largely face blind - I have to pick out specific features and traits and use the combination as identifiers. I get a ton of false positives, and almost everyone “feels familiar”. Beyond that, I’m pretty sensitive to colors and patterns. Idk.

But the -way- you ask that first question makes me curious; If you close your eyes and intentionally picture something other than the ball, would you then be unable to tell me what color it was in your example? Do you, personally, require the visual representation to “know” the object?

Not really, but typically if I can see someone else do a motion I can self-insert the movements I’d need to make to duplicate it, so that might just be a disused function for me.

Although that’s a good question, because I do have special memory that I use for a lot of things, and it involves movement, but maybe not in the same way someone else would (eg I can count the windows in my place by simulating a walk through my house and “opening windows” like I do on nice mornings, but I often forget about out-of-the-way non-opening windows because they aren’t part of my muscle memory)

I’m aphantasic. You can say “picture this” followed by whatever you like. It’s not possible for me in any way. Growing up I honestly thought “picture this” or “close your eyes and see” was just metaphor. I legitimately didn’t understand other people can see things.

My mind has a verbal descriptive stream, and I’m good with muscle-based or proprioceptive spacial memory, and the two combine to handle most things, but nothing visual. So like I can easily describe things from memory or from an idea, and it’ll be fully consistent, but not something I see.

If you have aphantasia, and not just hypophantasia, it makes no difference how much detail is provided, there’s a total, fundamental, inability to visualize things.

100%. This is actually the entire reason I dropped out of my masters program.

I’m a science communicator. My whole purpose for existing is making science accessible to people with less formal science training than a high school student.

I was going for a masters in conservation biology, because what better to communicate these days, right? And in the limnology class I took the first semester, all my papers got poor marks for failing to use the unnecessary academic terminology. It was all entirely correct information, just simplified, and that was unacceptable.

And I can’t work under those terms. I just am entirely incapable of making things overly complicated for no reason. It’s a force for specificity sometimes, but usually what it actually does is limit the reach of the work. And that’s just stupid.

Trichogramma wasps emerge from “their” egg already fully self-fertilized and ready to lay more eggs, but idk if that really counts since the first portion of their life cycle is consuming another insect’s egg as a parasite.. (I know a ton about them because I released them in my house for years to combat pantry moths when I had birds - they do an absolutely spectacular job.)

It’s a species without males, due to a bacterial infection that suppresses males almost entirely. If treated with antibiotics they start to produce males again. Essentially, the lack of males means they have to be fully fertile immediately. But idk if that makes it sexually mature or not. I think that’s definitely an edge case either way, but it’s the closest I can think of.

That’s just English though ;)

No worries, I appreciate it anyway :)

I wasn’t raised with any sort of religion, so I don’t know much about any of it (and definitely haven’t read the Bible.. tho I tried once and was bored out of my skull), but I feel like if I’d learned about that I’d remember it :p

Cool thanks! I’ll take a look!

I send super nasty emails to companies who leave their garbage on my door, or who knock. I have a hand-written no soliciting sign, and according to my state’s laws, that means I have lawfully requested to be left alone, and anyone who knocks or leaves their junk is trespassing and can be reported to the police and fined for doing so. Repeat offenses can lead to criminal charges.

As a political canvasser I was told “no soliciting signs don’t apply to you” cool, yeah, I’m still not knocking. I don’t care if it’s technically allowed through some stupid loophole, they want to be left alone I’m not bothering them.

Can you suggest any reading (like long form articles or something) about the women-led xtianity traditions?

I’ve never heard anything about that, and I’d like to know more.

I just got the quote to fix something and it’s about 5k more than insurance paid out so I’m at bees.