Aphantasia study

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Who knows. There are various theories about things like specializations, etc.... One theory I have, have had, is that something gets messed up with the specialization of parts of the brain, and they may tend to get reused for something else. Perhaps what ever part connects those thoughts to a visual area is simply used for something else. Look at daniel tammet. He OBVIOUSLY has something like that, and has exploited it to do so much more. Of course HIS "problem" is like aphantasia in reverse. I KNEW about HIS "problem", and how he experiences it because it is SO unusual, and he has exploited it SO well, that he even wrote books about it, and has had speeches about it. He was interviewed in FLUENT ICELANDIC! Just THAT is VERY unusual, especially considering that he had no ties to it, etc..... But the REALLY unusual part? He didn't know the language AT ALL a week earlier.

Well, with ME, I can still essentially watch the movies. When I refer to a movie, or a song, I often experience that first. And somehow my mind connects one topic to another. The connection has NOTHING to do with the movie. It is all about context, etc... And the movie could be from DECADES ago. It's not even just movies, it is pretty much anything. A picture, my experience, TV, etc... But still, as people are describing it, I have aphantasia. I have, at various times, tried to bring up pictures as if I were seeing them for real, but I have problems with that.

And with all of the things I have trouble trying to remember, that is the LEAST troublesome of all. I REALLY have to wonder though. If I can do this SO WELL with events, pictures, movies, etc..... WHY do people with Phantasia have such a hard time with so many things?

I saw Alita Battle Angel once, and I could pick out just about any scene, from the doctor picking her out of that trashheap, to her waking up in her new body, or the first time she saves the dog, or the time where the dog is killed, and she uses its blood as war paint, and starts fighting, or when her first body gets destroyed by the other cyborg, all the way up to the end, etc..... Maybe that is one reason why I rarely ever see a movie twice at the theaters. I LOVED the movie! NICE movie! But I really can see it any time I want. If I want, I could be in a meeting and watch it while others are doing whatever.

I speak a number of languages. I would LOVE to learn them better, and would like it if I could speak the top ten according to babbel!! !! There are 6 alphabets to learn. OK, I have one mastered, I am trying to learn 2 others. If I had phantasia, I could probably have learned them in less than a day! After all, they are only about 180 characters! Yeah, I would save chinese and arabic for last.

I feel like my mind is like a scanner vs other peoples minds being more like a camara or recording device. I can remember related things very well becuse i don't have to visualize them, but spelling and math + art very bad people probably picture what they are shown in these areas. And also handwriting. Its alsmost like i need the blue print with detailed descriptions and others just the picture which can be compared and analyzed in the mind and when they think they are being roughly accurate or estimating really there brain is comparing images to the real world and using that to have more memory

Normally, I would think you are nuts in that worry, but in this day and age, who knows? I remember earlier, YEARS AGO, when someone was talking vaguely about this, and then I wondered if I had such a problem and figured NO, I dream, I can "visually" sense things in the past or my imagination, etc.... But then I saw this woman explaining what SHE can supposedly do etc.... And I was aghast. I mean there are deficits I see in the world that don't match that assertion, and there are courses to try to get it, and "scientists" that said it isn't possible, though I KNOW dreaming is real.

One thing I DO know is that what I sense can SEEM like reality if I push it, and I can use it, but it is NOT like I am physically seeing a picture or a video. It is simply a visual UNDERSTANDING of a memory that is either the past, or that I built, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I guess such assertions as mine, or that woman's, can be merely made and not tested. I wondered that about tammets assertions at one point, but it turns out there is an easy test for his. Just give him twenty pages of text with numbers all over, and ask him to pick out a certain one, that occurs only on one page. With a normal person, it may take several hours, or perhaps forever. With him it would be a couple seconds. Apparently they DID test him in such a way.

ALSO, how do you determine levels, and at what level is it aphantasia.