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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe mcformick. Before

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Speaker 1: we roll into this episode, just a few quick reminders.

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Speaker 1: First of all, Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com

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Speaker 1: that's the mothership. That's where you need to go for

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Speaker 1: all of our podcast episodes, videos, blog post length out

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Speaker 1: are blow the Mind on both of those. You also

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Speaker 1: find us on Instagram and tumbler and always if you

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Speaker 1: want an easy way to help the podcast, the easiest

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Speaker 1: way to go about that is to just rate and

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Speaker 1: review us on whatever platform you used to listen to us, iTunes,

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Speaker 1: Stitch or whatever it is. Give us a rating and

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Speaker 1: review and that will help the show. All right, Joe,

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Speaker 1: what do we have today for the listening audience? Well,

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Speaker 1: today is going to be a follow up episode to

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Speaker 1: one we did pretty recently on the fascinating subject of

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Speaker 1: a fantasia, the blindness of the mind's Eye. So in

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Speaker 1: that last episode, if you haven't listened to it yet,

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Speaker 1: you should go back and check that one out first.

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Speaker 1: That's where we relay all the groundwork. We explained what

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Speaker 1: a fantasia is, how how it was discovered, and um

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Speaker 1: and what's the state of research today on this interesting condition.

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Speaker 1: But brief summary, Robert, what is a fantasia? Well, we're

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Speaker 1: essentially talking about blindness of the mind's I We're talking

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Speaker 1: about the inability to varying degrees to form mental imagery

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Speaker 1: in the mind. So this is affecting the way that

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Speaker 1: you remember things, the way that you daydream about the future,

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Speaker 1: the way you dream even Uh, it really plays into

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Speaker 1: your sensory experience of reality. Yeah. So in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: we tried to give you a visual picture to put

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Speaker 1: yourself in a scenario, tell a little story, and then

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Speaker 1: see how well can you picture all of the things

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Speaker 1: in this imaginary scenario. And it turns out that some

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Speaker 1: people can't picture these things at all. Because I think

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Speaker 1: we were rolling out something. You're standing on a beach,

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Speaker 1: pale deathly men and black coats and hats circuiting after you. No, wait,

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Speaker 1: that was a dark city. Uh that's a good one too,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, we would We laid out this whole mental

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Speaker 1: imagery experience just to sort of test everyone. Then we

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Speaker 1: talked about some other sort of questionnaires that have been

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Speaker 1: rolled out as well to sort of self evaluate your

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Speaker 1: own place on the spectrum here. Yeah, and that is

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Speaker 1: definitely one thing that came out in our discussion last time,

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Speaker 1: is that there really does seem to be a spectrum

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Speaker 1: of the vividness of mental imagery. Some people are what

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Speaker 1: we might call hyper fantasiacts or they have hyper fantasia.

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Speaker 1: They when they make a mental picture in their mind,

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Speaker 1: they don't just have a vague, kind of generic mental picture.

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Speaker 1: They have a very detailed, incredibly clear mental picture. So

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Speaker 1: if they picture a beach, they might not just see

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Speaker 1: sand and water in the sky and maybe some seagulls,

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Speaker 1: but they'll see, uh, seven umbrellas, and these are the

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Speaker 1: colors on the umbrellas, and there are fourteen people on

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Speaker 1: their beach. And then at the other end we have

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Speaker 1: the main subject of that episode that the people with

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Speaker 1: a fantasia, meaning they can't picture a beach at all,

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Speaker 1: there's no way for them to see it unless they're

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Speaker 1: looking at it. Uh. And then of course there's this

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Speaker 1: whole middle spectrum. More people might have varying degrees of

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Speaker 1: mental imagery, like you can sort of see a generic

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Speaker 1: beach but not a lot of detail, or you can

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Speaker 1: see a lot of detail up and down the scale. Robert,

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Speaker 1: I think we we both took the test and fell

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Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle and sort of typical levels of

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Speaker 1: mental imagery. Yeah, indeed, and and that's one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons that we're doing this episode. One of the reasons

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Speaker 1: we reached out to everybody because in talking about this, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're coming from the standpoint of sort of

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Speaker 1: mid level mental visionaries, So we definitely wanted to get

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Speaker 1: the perspective from individuals that are, you know, on either

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Speaker 1: end of the spectrum. And it turns out lots of

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Speaker 1: you out there have really interesting experiences with a fantasia

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Speaker 1: or hyper fantasia, and lots of you got in touch

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Speaker 1: with us, So we thought we'd take this episode to

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Speaker 1: read some of the great responses that you sent back

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Speaker 1: on this subject. So, I mean, it makes sense to

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Speaker 1: write because what it was like two percent and we

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Speaker 1: don't do not have any firm numbers on this, but

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Speaker 1: the estimate is a little over two percent of the

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Speaker 1: population has h you know, notable degrees of a fantasia. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was that two thousand nine study we talked about

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Speaker 1: in the last episode. I believe it was by Fall.

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Speaker 1: The psychologist Bill Fall found that two points something per

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Speaker 1: cent of the people in this survey seemed to have

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Speaker 1: extremely low or no mental imagery. Alright, so we're gonna

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Speaker 1: just jump into it now. We're gonna set up. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna set a time or for ourselves and say an hour.

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Speaker 1: It's about it as long as we tend to like

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Speaker 1: to go with the with the podcast episodes, So we're

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Speaker 1: just gonna see how many of them we can get

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Speaker 1: out in an hour. If we don't get to yours,

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Speaker 1: I apologize, but I guarantee you we read all of

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Speaker 1: them and we greatly appreciate the feedback. Okay, This first

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Speaker 1: message is from our listener Koti so Kyoti says, Hey,

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Speaker 1: so I saw you guys on periscope last week. It

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Speaker 1: was my first time tuning in and what did you

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Speaker 1: guys happen to start discussing? But this condition I recently

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Speaker 1: learned about called a fantasia. Y'all were trying to ask

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Speaker 1: if people with a fantasia dreamed pictures. The answer is, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about others, but I certainly do. One

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Speaker 1: of the questions you asked in your podcast was about hallucinations.

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Speaker 1: That's where we ask, you know, is it possible to

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Speaker 1: hallucinate if you can't see things that aren't in front

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Speaker 1: of your eyes? And Koti says, I also suffer from

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Speaker 1: occasional hallucinations, which are very brief but very clear, maybe

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Speaker 1: like twice a month, not very often. I'm able to

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Speaker 1: easily tell the difference between them and reality because they

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Speaker 1: usually have nothing to do with what I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: do at the moment. I've been like this my whole life,

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Speaker 1: and I just thought I wasn't good at remembering things.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't visualize things, but I would just know the information.

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Speaker 1: I'm very good with remembering numbers, though, and very good

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Speaker 1: at recognizing patterns. I often wonder if it's because my

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Speaker 1: head isn't cluttered up with pictures all the time. I

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Speaker 1: wonder if there's anything, because, like when it comes to

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Speaker 1: getting around town, I'm I'm the opposite. Like I have

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Speaker 1: no idea what the name of that street that I

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Speaker 1: travel every day, but I have it in my head

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Speaker 1: and I didn't drive to it. No problem. You're picturing

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Speaker 1: the guy you saw who looked funny on the sidewalk

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Speaker 1: the last time yeah, I remember him the name of

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Speaker 1: the street, number of the street idea. Yeah, so, Kyote continues,

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Speaker 1: Which isn't to say I don't see pictures at all,

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Speaker 1: but they were ephemeral at best and very vague. So

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Speaker 1: it sounds like maybe if if Kyota isn't completely a

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Speaker 1: fantastic it might might be very low on the visualization

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Speaker 1: vividness spectrum. Uh so, Kyote continues. I've known that people

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Speaker 1: don't process information the way I do for a while,

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Speaker 1: but for the but the first time I really understood

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Speaker 1: was when my boyfriend was trying to teach me how

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Speaker 1: to meditate. I hadn't thought about meditation, and there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of mental imagery and meditation or their candy. Yeah yeah, continuing,

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Speaker 1: he asked me to visualize the color green and focus

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Speaker 1: on it, and I tried. I really did. I was

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Speaker 1: able to come up with a vague green in my head,

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Speaker 1: but it quickly slipped away. I had a lot more

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Speaker 1: luck with yoga because I was able to focus in

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Speaker 1: on the music or my instructors voice. I don't visualize

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Speaker 1: my body when I'm doing yoga, but I am aware

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Speaker 1: of where everything is when my eyes are closed. It's

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Speaker 1: not because This is a point that I specifically brought

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Speaker 1: up yoga. Yeah, continuing, it's not like a superpower or anything.

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Speaker 1: I just know. And there's actually a scientific word for this.

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Speaker 1: You might be aware of it. It's called appropriate reception. Yes,

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Speaker 1: we have. There's an older episode of stuff to bling

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Speaker 1: your mind about this. Yeah, so appropriate exception is the

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Speaker 1: reason why, Hey, to try a quick experiment, as long

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Speaker 1: as you're not driving a car or something, close your

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Speaker 1: eyes and then put your hands together. You can do

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Speaker 1: it even though you can't see where your hands are.

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Speaker 1: And this is because your sense of appropriate reception. It's

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Speaker 1: this natural sense to be able to know where your

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Speaker 1: different body parts are and their movement and relationship to

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Speaker 1: one another, even without looking at them, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's how we move our bodies around in this world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you like, you don't always have to be looking at

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Speaker 1: your feet in order to step. Pretty useful. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But anyway, continuing with the mail, I'm also an artist

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Speaker 1: and a writer. This is interesting to me because some

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Speaker 1: of these people with a fantasy year reported that they

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Speaker 1: can't draw at all, not even close, or they had

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Speaker 1: difficulty trying to ride out imagine scenarios etcetera. Especially visual descriptions.

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Speaker 1: But continuing with the letter art is hard because I

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Speaker 1: don't ever have a clear picture of what I want

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Speaker 1: to draw. I just keep doodling until I've created something

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Speaker 1: I like. Writing is easier, the words just come to me.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I can tap more into how something

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Speaker 1: makes you feel, rather than worrying about how something looks.

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Speaker 1: The biggest downside is not being able to picture faces.

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Speaker 1: I can sometimes get an image or of a place

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Speaker 1: or a scene sometimes, but I've never been able to

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Speaker 1: picture faces. It makes me sad because I've just recently

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Speaker 1: married my boyfriend and people ask me about my husband,

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Speaker 1: I have to give them a general description or dig

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Speaker 1: out my pictures to show them. I mean, I know him,

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Speaker 1: he has a beard, dark skin, beautiful brown eyes, but

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Speaker 1: I can't see it in my head. I know my

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Speaker 1: family and friends, but I can't see them either. So

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Speaker 1: to end on a glum note, anyhow, thanks for doing

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Speaker 1: the podcast. It made me feel not so alone to

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Speaker 1: know there are other people like this. I think I'll

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Speaker 1: check out those forums you mentioned. We mentioned some a

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Speaker 1: Fantasia forums in the last episode. PS Okay, I do

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Speaker 1: have one bone to pick with you in both periscope

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Speaker 1: and the podcast. You are very careful to state that

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Speaker 1: these people quote claimed to have a fantasia. Almost any

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Speaker 1: time it was brought up and people about people having it,

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Speaker 1: the word claimed was also present. What gives is it?

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Speaker 1: Because there's no way to prove if someone has it,

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Speaker 1: or because of a lack of understanding? Am I looking

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Speaker 1: too far into this? Just wondering? I can't imagine anyone

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Speaker 1: pretending to have a fantasia? I mean, what's the point?

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Speaker 1: I hope you guys have a great day and thanks

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Speaker 1: for reading. Well, I can address the why we say claimed.

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Speaker 1: That's just talking about how you would deal with first

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Speaker 1: person experience in science, like there there's no way to

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Speaker 1: know what somebody else's first person experience really is, so

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Speaker 1: you just talk about what they claim to experience. That's

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Speaker 1: the only way you can deal that. It's not because

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Speaker 1: we're being skeptical and saying all these people are lying

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Speaker 1: about what they experience. It's just trying to reflect the

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Speaker 1: reality of the data we have to work with. We

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Speaker 1: can't be in their heads. We can only talk about

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Speaker 1: what they claim to experience. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, thanks for

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Speaker 1: that great email, Coach, that was really interesting to read.

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Speaker 1: So Robert, let's have another one. All right. This is

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Speaker 1: one from Facebook. This is a far shorter response, but

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Speaker 1: it has a nugget in here that I think it's

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Speaker 1: very tantalizing. Marine wrote in and said, I think I

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Speaker 1: have this. I can't visualize things either. Visualization is a

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Speaker 1: strategy that I am supposed to teach kids who have

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Speaker 1: trouble with comprehension, but I am not very good at this,

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Speaker 1: and now I think it is because I have a fantasia.

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Speaker 1: Mind blown this Uh, this really fascinated me because it

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Speaker 1: it underlines this idea that okay, we have all we're

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Speaker 1: only talking about you know, two percent of individuals probably

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Speaker 1: that have a fantasia. So the vast majority of individuals

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Speaker 1: that are contributing to curriculums, to teaching strategies, they are

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Speaker 1: individuals that have more or less than average mental visualization

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Speaker 1: uh system in place. Yeah, so then what's happening when

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Speaker 1: you know, when you have individuals that are being taught

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Speaker 1: or individuals that are teachers who are having to engage

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Speaker 1: with the same curriculum and use the thing curriculum to teach. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this this makes me think about all kinds of different

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Speaker 1: things about the way our society is structured based on

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Speaker 1: the mistaken assumption that most people have roughly equivalent powers

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Speaker 1: of mental imagery. Like. Another way this comes across is

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Speaker 1: in the justice system and the use of like the

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Speaker 1: use of eyewitness testimony in the justice system. I feel like,

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Speaker 1: hopefully people know that there's a spectrum of vividness of

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Speaker 1: mental imagery and visual recall, but I bet there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of cases where there is There are serious

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Speaker 1: problems in the justice system and the use of eye

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Speaker 1: witness testimony because people are just assuming that everyone out

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Speaker 1: there has just as good visual recall and mental imagery

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Speaker 1: as they do, and that's not necessarily the case. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: This on top of of course all the inherent memory

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Speaker 1: problems with eyewitness testimony, as well as the ability to

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Speaker 1: manipulate those memories if you're the one asking the questions.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, we can add a plantation into that, into

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Speaker 1: that whole cauldron of problems as well. Man, I just

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Speaker 1: never read a single thing about eyewitness testimony that makes

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Speaker 1: me more trustworthy of Every single piece of science or

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Speaker 1: data I come across just undermines it more. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it just seems like the label should be you know, used,

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Speaker 1: but used with caution and used with the understanding that

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Speaker 1: this is not this is not video camera HD footage.

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Speaker 1: This is this is a flawed memory that is susceptible

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Speaker 1: to manipulation, alteration, and uh, it might not be that

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Speaker 1: even reliable to begin with. Yeah, yet another case for

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Speaker 1: augmenting our bodies with video cameras where our eyes are,

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Speaker 1: so we can just press record on everything that's important.

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Speaker 1: That's that's all I'm arguing for. Joe. Do you want

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Speaker 1: to do another one, Robert, Yeah, let me grab one here,

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Speaker 1: all right. This one is from Emily. She says a

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Speaker 1: longtime listener, first time caller, Smiley face. I just listened

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Speaker 1: to your podcast on a fantasia. It caught my ear

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Speaker 1: because a friend had recently posted about this phenomenon of Facebook.

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Speaker 1: She doesn't see mental images and was doing a survey

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Speaker 1: of her friends. I don't see mental images either. Until

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Speaker 1: I listened to your podcast. I didn't realize people actually

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Speaker 1: see things. I thought when people talk about picturing things

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Speaker 1: in their mind, it was just a figure of speech.

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize there was actually a picture. Mind equals

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Speaker 1: blown Emily, this is uh, yeah, this is interest. The

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Speaker 1: the we I think we touched a little bit on

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Speaker 1: this in the original episode, like people hearing about this

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Speaker 1: and just not really understanding what what people were talking about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is something we've heard, so we heard it in

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Speaker 1: the original episode when we were doing research. And like,

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Speaker 1: for example, that essay by Blake Ross about what it's

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Speaker 1: like to discover a fantasia where he reports that he

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Speaker 1: didn't realize other people could see mental images. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: we heard this from a bunch of listeners. A lot

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Speaker 1: of you who got in touch with us said you

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Speaker 1: had the exact same experience. You just had no idea

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Speaker 1: this was even a thing other people could do. But

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Speaker 1: another way this parallels the Blake Ross I say is

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Speaker 1: that he also did the same thing where when he

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Speaker 1: found out about it, he went online and started surveying

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Speaker 1: all his friends and you know, trying to get in

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Speaker 1: touch with them, saying, wait a minute, you see something

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Speaker 1: that's not there, like you can see it, uh, and

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Speaker 1: and quizzing all the people he knew. And it turns

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Speaker 1: out he got in touch with some people he knew

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Speaker 1: who were also experiencing a fantasia. And it looks like

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Speaker 1: Emily's friend did as well. In Emily um, I have

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Speaker 1: a friend whose coworker has this, and I found this interesting.

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Speaker 1: Apparently he describes his memory of people like when when

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Speaker 1: he thinks of someone, it's like pulling up a Wikipedia

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Speaker 1: page about that person, which is an interesting way to

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Speaker 1: describe it. There's a lot of That's one of the

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Speaker 1: things that's so tantalizing about this this topic is that

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Speaker 1: you you ultimately have the each side trying to relate

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Speaker 1: with their experience their memory experiences, like in each dealing

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Speaker 1: with a slightly different system. All right, now here's another one.

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Speaker 1: This coming comes to us from Olaf in Sweden. Says, Hi,

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Speaker 1: my name is Olaf and I'm a twenty nine year

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Speaker 1: old man from Sweden. When I was in my early twenties,

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Speaker 1: me and a friend played the would you rather game

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Speaker 1: and came to the question would you rather be blind

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Speaker 1: or deaf? I said blind in a second, and my

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Speaker 1: friend asked me why because he thought it was strange,

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Speaker 1: and I said, well, I store all of my information

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Speaker 1: vocally in my head, so my side is useless in

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Speaker 1: that way. Then I thought, if you're born deaf and

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Speaker 1: never heard a spoken word in your life in which

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Speaker 1: language do you think? My friend replied you don't you

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Speaker 1: picture it. That blew my mind because I had never

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Speaker 1: had pictures in my mind before. I had a constant

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Speaker 1: thought process in which I have an ongoing inner conversation

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Speaker 1: with myself where I sort out and store information. Like

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Speaker 1: if someone tells me, remember that time last summer when

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Speaker 1: we had watermelons for dinner, certainly remember that time, Robert.

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Speaker 1: I first think about watermelons, what they are a fruit,

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Speaker 1: then the color green and how they taste. And after

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Speaker 1: that I can remind myself of conversations I remember bound

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Speaker 1: to the taste of watermelons. Then based on the lingo

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Speaker 1: of the conversation I now repeat in my head, I

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Speaker 1: can determine who I was speaking with at the time.

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Speaker 1: Then I remember which time, uh they are talking about.

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Speaker 1: So if I have to recall something, I always ask

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Speaker 1: what were we talking about? Rather than was it sunny?

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Speaker 1: Thanks for the great podcast, and keep up the great work,

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Speaker 1: old Off, Thanks for that message. All Off that so

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Speaker 1: I don't recall ever having watermelons from for dinner, but

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Speaker 1: I can actually relate here because I sometimes do this.

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Speaker 1: I'm obviously I don't have a fantasia, but I often

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Speaker 1: try to place memories by trying to remember what we

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Speaker 1: were talking about at the time, and I'm sure that

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Speaker 1: comes off as rather weird to people who are more visual,

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Speaker 1: trying to remember what people were wearing or what, you know,

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Speaker 1: what the weather was like that day, that those aren't

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Speaker 1: typically things I store as much. So maybe I'm lower

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Speaker 1: on the on the mental vividness scale. And of course

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Speaker 1: this is gonna get even getting into again the whole

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Speaker 1: complex nature of memory, where sometimes we have these clear

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Speaker 1: memories of what we were wearing, what we were doing,

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Speaker 1: especially when really important things happened, and those memories are

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Speaker 1: not all that reliable either. Sometimes the brain just kind

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Speaker 1: of goes ahead and just colors that scenario and you

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Speaker 1: tuck that mental image away in your mind, and it

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Speaker 1: might not even be all that accurate. Yeah, what happened

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Speaker 1: that night, Well, we were eating watermelons for dinner. Uh No.

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Speaker 1: Another thing that Olaf says that's interesting is that he

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Speaker 1: talks about having this internal conversation with him with himself.

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Speaker 1: And this is another thing that we came across reading

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Speaker 1: for the previous episode, where if sometimes people report this

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Speaker 1: that instead of picturing the thing they're about to do,

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Speaker 1: they have a conversation mentally about what they're about to do.

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Speaker 1: So I don't picture walking to the kitchen going to

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Speaker 1: get a glass of water. I say, what am I

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Speaker 1: going to do? Now? I'm going to go to the

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Speaker 1: kitchen and when I'm there, I'm going to get a

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Speaker 1: glass of water. Okay, let's do it. Okay. This next

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Speaker 1: email is from our listener Luisa called another a fantasiac person.

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Speaker 1: Luisa says, hello, guys, I really love the podcast, and

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Speaker 1: when I saw the topic for this week's one, I

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Speaker 1: knew it would be weird and exciting. I found out

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Speaker 1: that I was a fantasiac. I prefer a fantastic. Actually

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Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not sure what the proper word is.

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Speaker 1: I would assume based on the way the word is structured,

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Speaker 1: if you have a fantasia, you're an a fantasiac. But

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Speaker 1: I hope that doesn't come off as sounding like you're

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Speaker 1: a maniac a fantasiac. It does kind of sound like

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Speaker 1: like disturb People who would attack can say, like a

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Speaker 1: Blue Sunshine type of exploitation film, Well, that is a

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Speaker 1: great film, but please don't take it that way. But

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Speaker 1: maybe we can go with a fantastic. That's a nice

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Speaker 1: one like it anyway, she continues. When the studies started

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Speaker 1: to be reported by the media and science blogs, I

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Speaker 1: was one of the people who were like, wait, you

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Speaker 1: guys mean you literally see things? So yet again this

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Speaker 1: experience as a child, I got bored when I was

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Speaker 1: supposed to imagine things like counting sheep, and I just

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Speaker 1: thought it was something that grown ups found entertaining, but

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Speaker 1: I had no interest in like instrumental music and newspapers.

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Speaker 1: Years passed, and I guess I just never thought much

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Speaker 1: about it. When I found out I was different, I

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Speaker 1: felt immensely sad. It seems to be a very exciting

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Speaker 1: thing to be missing out. My grandfather passed away last year,

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Speaker 1: and I need pictures to remember him by. Of course,

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Speaker 1: I know who he is and I can describe him

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Speaker 1: in detail, but I cannot, for the life of me,

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Speaker 1: picture him at all. It feels really unfair that I

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Speaker 1: cannot see him when people can do that easily, even

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Speaker 1: if they weren't as close to him as I was.

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Speaker 1: It's weird that you guys can't imagine what it's like

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Speaker 1: to not be able to picture things. It's a lot

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Speaker 1: harder for me to try to imagine what it is

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Speaker 1: like to picture things. I guess it's hard either way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's the crazy thing. That's like, we're

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Speaker 1: each on a different side of this stream. I mean

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Speaker 1: some people are kind of standing straddling in a little bit.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm just trying to relate what the views

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Speaker 1: like from our side. Well, one listener on Facebook pointed out, Hey,

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Speaker 1: you know it's it's difficult to imagine things. What about

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Speaker 1: trying to imagine being actually blind instead of blinding the

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Speaker 1: mind's eye? And I thought, well, obviously it's not what

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Speaker 1: we can't simulate, whether it's like to be blind your

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Speaker 1: whole life or to have that whole experience of blindness.

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Speaker 1: But you can sort of temporarily roughly simulated just by

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Speaker 1: closing your eyes. You know, you can know what it's

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Speaker 1: like to try to navigate surroundings without being able to

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Speaker 1: see anything. But you can't close your mind's eye, or

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Speaker 1: at least I can't. I find it literally impossible not

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Speaker 1: to picture mental images on command. Yeah, like even when

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Speaker 1: I shut if I'm able to shut down deliberate mental images,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm still going to have sort of spontaneous

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Speaker 1: mental images. Yeah, it's something related to the default mode network. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, stuff in the past, thinking about the future

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Speaker 1: of even shut all that out, then I'm still gonna

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Speaker 1: get sort of like random like meditation shivasana imagery in

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Speaker 1: my head. Yeah. I find that if I try to

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Speaker 1: just say, okay, picture nothing, don't picture anything, just blackness, nothing,

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Speaker 1: my mind starts going to that scene in Ghostbusters where

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Speaker 1: and then I end up picturing the Ghostbusters and I

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Speaker 1: pictured dan Ackroid and I pictured the st stay Puff

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Speaker 1: marshmallow Man oh Man. So so basically, if all of

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Speaker 1: the Ghostbusters have been a fantasic and a fantasiact, ghoz

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Speaker 1: Or would not have had a leg to stand on.

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Speaker 1: That he could not have pictured something to for the

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Speaker 1: for the destroyer to to incarnate itself. He would have

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Speaker 1: been thwarted. That's why you should you should always hire

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Speaker 1: a fantasiac for your ghost fighting purposes. This is so good.

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Speaker 1: This is so good, I'm almost tempted to remove it

429
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 1: from the episodes that that we can exploit it. Uh,

430
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:42,399
Speaker 1: maybe we can. May we canna write something up for

431
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:46,159
Speaker 1: Houseloff Works now about this? Okay, that's a good idea. Anyway,

432
00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:49,439
Speaker 1: we should continue with Luisa's email, So she says. I

433
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: used to explain it as like having a smell bring

434
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: back memories. The information on the smell memory is there

435
00:21:56,600 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 1: and it's easily recognizable once you smell that again. But

436
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 1: it's in possible to conjecture a smell in your head. Actually, Luisa,

437
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:06,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if I agree with that. I can

438
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:11,400
Speaker 1: imagine what smells smell like, can can you, Robert? Can

439
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,879
Speaker 1: you smell something that you're not currently smelling, like a

440
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:18,280
Speaker 1: smell of onions sauteing in a pan? I can just

441
00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:22,000
Speaker 1: I can sort of mentally smell that right now a

442
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:25,160
Speaker 1: little bit. I know. I have found that I can

443
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:29,000
Speaker 1: do this better like I can there there have been

444
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: certain situations in places in the right um arrangement of

445
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: things to where I can imagine, taste and smell better

446
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Vague description of it, um, But

447
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 1: for the most part it's like I kind of have

448
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:50,240
Speaker 1: to strain for it. Interesting. Yeah, well yeah, so clearly

449
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 1: here there. This is yet another thing where there is

450
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 1: variable experience on what you can create mentally, the mental

451
00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 1: sensory experience. Luis is obviously having a different experience from

452
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:04,359
Speaker 1: from me and from you. Yeah. Oh, actually, and she

453
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: anticipates me. I should have remembered this, she says. But

454
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,400
Speaker 1: maybe people are able to do that also, And it's

455
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: another sense I can't bring by myself. Is it so

456
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: for me? Visual data is there. I can describe things

457
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 1: as you could with a smell, but I am not

458
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: visualizing the things I'm describing. I just know what the

459
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:24,760
Speaker 1: description is. This is consistent with a lot of what

460
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: we read. I am a fantasiac with sounds as well.

461
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: If I try to imagine a dog bark, I can

462
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 1: hear my own voice barking, but never an actual dog.

463
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. I love it. Earworms are me singing the

464
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 1: songs and all the noise. I can only imagine them

465
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: if I can make them. I'm the worst with impressions

466
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: and accents. Can't do anything. I wonder if I can't

467
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: do impressions because I can't imagine them, or I can't

468
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: imagine them because I can't do them. That, yeah, that's

469
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,480
Speaker 1: interesting because there I feel like when I do if

470
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 1: I do an impersonation, goven. If I fail miserably to

471
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: do one, um like I'm still very much like Donald Trump,

472
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: for instance. I don't have a good Donald Donald Trump impersonation,

473
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 1: but one cannot help but want to do one, given

474
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: how much Trump were e supposed to in the media

475
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: right now. So even when I try, the mental image

476
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:21,400
Speaker 1: of Trump enters my mind and and I essentially try

477
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: and blow that out into a full possession of my body.

478
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: But you can't do the voice. No, it's not not

479
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: you know, it just becomes a bad Australian accident or something,

480
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 1: and then I feel bad about myself and stuff. Anyway,

481
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 1: Luisa goes on, I do dream very vividly. We heard

482
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,719
Speaker 1: a lot of different stuff about dreams with this question.

483
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: Some some dreams, some don't. She says, I was told

484
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: that seeing with your mind's eye is not like dreaming.

485
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: Though I don't know if I can hallucinate, as I

486
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: never did those kind of drugs. Though of course you

487
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 1: don't have to do drugs to hallucinate. That that that

488
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: is one way that a person without a natural tendency

489
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: to hallucinate can get there. Anyway, Luisa goes on to say,

490
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: thank you for an amazing podcast. I was able to

491
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: understand a little more about me, even if even if

492
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: it always makes me sad for the things I'm missing.

493
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask.

494
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: I'll gladly explain that this is Luisa and Brazil. Well,

495
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: thank you for that awesome email, Louisa, Yeah, that was great.

496
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: All right, Robert, you got another one for us. Yeah,

497
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: this one kind of relates we were just talking about

498
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 1: because it gets into smell. Carolyn rode in and she says,

499
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:27,120
Speaker 1: I never thought I would email a podcast, but your

500
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: recent show and a plantation inspired me to right in.

501
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: You asked what it would be like to imagine things

502
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: without the minds. I never thought it was possible to

503
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 1: see anything in my mind outside of a dream. For me,

504
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: it's like having that memory of seeing the picture when

505
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: you look at an object and then afterwards can remember

506
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: what it looked like. Also, perhaps to compensate for the

507
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,680
Speaker 1: lack of images, I can, if I concentrate hard enough,

508
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: feel and hear and faintly smell something imagined. Of these three,

509
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 1: it is easiest for me to feel something imagined. For example,

510
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: I once imagined I was laying on a patch of

511
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: grass in the sun. I could feel the grass and

512
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: the ground underneath me, and the warmth of the sun,

513
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: and even the position I was laying. I also had

514
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: a sense of how I had gotten there and the

515
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,479
Speaker 1: wider imaginary world I had created. It was like I

516
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: jumped into the scene just after I had laid down

517
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: and closed my eyes, but I could not open my

518
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: eyes to see if there were any clouds in the sky.

519
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: That's about as vivid as my imagined sense can get.

520
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:28,479
Speaker 1: If I concentrate. I can even imagine a faint smell,

521
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 1: but have never tried to imagine a taste. Most of

522
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: the time, my imagination consists of words like I am

523
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: reading a book in real time as I write it. Also,

524
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: as I traveled through my imagined worlds, I do so

525
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: in first person, so I can imagine moving through the

526
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: world either as myself or as the main character, so

527
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: I can experience the other senses faintly, as if remembering

528
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 1: something experienced before. I always look forward to your next episode.

529
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: Thanks Caroline, Well yeah, well thanks for writing in. That's

530
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: again just another interesting person sspective on how how you

531
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: experience and remember the world and imagine the world really

532
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: with less of an emphasis on visual imagery. Now, Robert,

533
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 1: you were saying you had some difficulty trying to mentally

534
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: smell something like until you imagine the smell What about

535
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: what about feel and and and taste and well taste,

536
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,679
Speaker 1: touch and hearing. Yeah, well, taste definitely goes into what

537
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: I know, the example that I mentioned earlier, like taste

538
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 1: and smell, I feel like they're the same as far

539
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 1: as field goes. Yeah, it feels difficult for me too. Yeah.

540
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 1: You so you can't imagine the feeling of, say, petting

541
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: a cat, like feeling it's for you? Can't? You can't

542
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: feel that in your mind. I can, but I'm more

543
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,479
Speaker 1: likely to describe it in my mind, like I'm thinking

544
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: of like like I'm touching a cat or you know

545
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 1: or or you know, my my son's cheek or something like.

546
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: I can think, oh, that's soft and that's smooth, and

547
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: I can visualize myself doing it, But in terms of

548
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: like feeling it that like, I'm really struggling to to

549
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: have that kind of a memory. What about taking a

550
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,479
Speaker 1: rotten piece of fruit, smashing it into your face and

551
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: smearing it all over your skin. Well, that's a fantastic

552
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: visual image you just created, and that you can't feel

553
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: the fruit? No, no, weird. I can feel that. I

554
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 1: can feel what that would feel like. Yeah, I hadn't

555
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: really thought about any of this before. But that example

556
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 1: comes up because we have a coworker who sits between

557
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: Robert and now who has had the same piece of

558
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: fruit rotting on their desk for months. Yes, it's it's

559
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: quite in a way. It's kind of beautiful and very

560
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: goth So it is like turned into a water balloon

561
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: of of fragrance and worms and ms of a lot

562
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: of balloon of worms. All right, what I should imagine

563
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: We should probably take a quick break here and we

564
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: come back. We will explore some more listener mail related

565
00:28:52,720 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: to a plantation. All right, we're a what do we

566
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: have next? Well, I'm going to read one from Nelson

567
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: called Gained a Fantasias story. So one of the reasons

568
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: that we that we know about a phantasia, now, one

569
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: of the reasons that's been written about in the media

570
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: lately is because of a story of acquired a fantasia.

571
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: A guy who was an older guy who got a

572
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: coronary angioplastic which is routine medical procedure to widen an artery,

573
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: and after this experience, he suddenly had lost his ability

574
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: to make mental pictures. It's almost kind of He's almost

575
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: called the Rosetta Stone of this, uh, this scenario, and

576
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: this this attempt to translate these experiences from one type

577
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: of person to the audit. Yeah, and so, of course

578
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: after this story, a lot of people started getting in

579
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: contact with with researchers in this area and saying, hey, look,

580
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: I've got a phantasia. I've headed my whole life. And

581
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: so we we have been mostly talking about people who

582
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: have always had a fantasia. But this is a note

583
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: from a listener who acquired it. So Nelson writes, Hey, guys,

584
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: longtime listener to the podcast. While I work, I've never

585
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: had a reason to right in until now with a

586
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: personal story about how I, for a lack of a

587
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: better word, gained a fantasia and what it's like. I

588
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: know that I've not always been unable to picture images

589
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: in my mind, because I remember waking up with night

590
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,959
Speaker 1: terrors when I was young, particularly to a dream of

591
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: my backyard. A farmer who I didn't recognize would be

592
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: standing there with a straw hat and a pitchfork as

593
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: a volcano grew out of the ground and killed us all.

594
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: It always seemed incredibly vivid, and I would wake most

595
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: nights screaming from it. This lasted until I was about

596
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: six years old when I was in an accident. I

597
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: rolled out of bed one night over the top of it,

598
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: not the sides, and landed on a metal ac intake event,

599
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: causing a concussion and multiple lacerations, requiring over twenty stitches.

600
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: When they put me under anesthetic, I had a hallucination

601
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: that I still remember all of the details too. But

602
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: when I awoke, things in my head just seemed different.

603
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: I couldn't picture things like I once was able to.

604
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: I remember things just as well as everyone else, but

605
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: not in the same way. When I go to sleep,

606
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: I no longer dream in the way I remember dreaming either.

607
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: Now all of my dreams to this day are like

608
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: reading a book is to me. I know the events

609
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: that are happening and the general makeup of the setting,

610
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: but I see, smell and feel nothing. But I can

611
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: hear what's going on. Even so, it still feels completely real,

612
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: like it is happening to me. That's fascinating. So like

613
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: he he he gets lost in the dream, Like I

614
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: can't imagine what this is like either, being able to

615
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: get lost in an experience and feel like it's really happening,

616
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: but not picture anything anyway. Nelson continues, but to the

617
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: final point, I wanted to make both of you ask

618
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: questions about what really is going on in the mind

619
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: of someone with a fantasia And the best way I

620
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: found to relate it to someone who doesn't have it

621
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: is like if you were physically watching a D and

622
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: D board as the game is played Dungeons and Dragons reference.

623
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: Of course, Uh, there's a large area, and you know

624
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: where everything is is in relation to other objects, and

625
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: there's description playing in your head of exactly what is happening,

626
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: But you don't actually see the die cut token picking

627
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: up a potion. You just know it's happening. Oh my goodness.

628
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:16,239
Speaker 1: This makes me want to now question all of my

629
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: the players in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign and find

630
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 1: out if they're a fantasics or not, because that that

631
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: because I have this idea, I just kind of assume, yes,

632
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: they having having the exact same visualization experience as I

633
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: am as we lay out this collective storytelling world. But

634
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: probably not. I mean, even if none of them are

635
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: are a fantasia acts, we're all going to be somewhere

636
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: slightly different on the spectrum. Yeah, well, it makes you

637
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: wonder if you could play if you could play D

638
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: and D with no visual aids whatsoever, like just all

639
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: sitting around, just people talking through a D and D

640
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: game with no with no writing materials, no maps. Well

641
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: that's interesting now because I've never been in of in

642
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: a game where there's absolutely nothing. But I feel like

643
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: the like some of the earlier games that I was involved,

644
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: we we didn't even we didn't really have much in

645
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: the way of maps drawn out. It was more of hey,

646
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: you are here, what are you doing? And maybe maybe

647
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: that they were also playing a little fast and loose

648
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: with the rules to facilitate that, but it Yeah, but

649
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: it could be that the d M, which was like

650
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: an older kid um as in my theres in Boy

651
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: Scouts with maybe he was just a you know, higher

652
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: level on the visualization into the spectrum and just assume

653
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: that we all were too. And then surely you don't

654
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: need figurines or maps because I'm explaining it to you

655
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: and your mind is there. Yeah, I might as well

656
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: play a video for you. Yeah, wow and interesting. Yeah, Well, anyway,

657
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: thank you very much for getting in touch. Nelson. All right,

658
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: this next one comes to us from Chris. Chris is

659
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: a long time listening to points out that he's been

660
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: listening since the stuff from the science Lab days. So

661
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: thanks for hanging in there all this time, Chris, He says,

662
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: your podcast wasn't awakening. I never knew that it was

663
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: a normal thing to be able to picture images in

664
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: your mind. The only thing I can picture in my

665
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: mind is the faint white outline of basic perfect geometric

666
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: pet shapes on the blackness that is my inner eyelift. Wow,

667
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: that's very specific. Yeah, I have to have my eyes

668
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: closed for that. I can dream, and my dreams have pictures,

669
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: but I cannot remember any detail about my dreams moments

670
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: after I wake up, so I cannot describe them more.

671
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: My memories of things and places are like facts, not videos.

672
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: I cannot replay a memory, but I can recount the

673
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: memory in bullet points. This happened, then, that happened, etcetera.

674
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: This may explain how it is so easy for me

675
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: to misplace things, as only important details are remembered. This

676
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: may not be related because even visual people lose things.

677
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: My thinking is not visual, and I don't have a

678
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: monologue running in my head. I can think in words,

679
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: but mainly my thoughts in ideas and these can be

680
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: translated into words. I can translate them into pictures as well,

681
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: but only if I am drawing or making something. What

682
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: is interesting about this is that I am a very

683
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: creative person visually and otherwise. I draw not as often

684
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,800
Speaker 1: or as skillfully as I wish I could. I write,

685
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: and I cook. My writing is, as I've said before,

686
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: not directly out of my mind, but translated from ideas

687
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: into words. Sometimes the idea is slow and I don't

688
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: consciously have to come up with the words, but there

689
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: are definitely times where I need a gap to find

690
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 1: the right word. It's like translating from one language to another,

691
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 1: but one language is English and the other is conceptual.

692
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: Communication is definitely my weakness, and I have spent much

693
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: time working to improve my communication skills, and most of

694
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: that is the translation from ideas into words. And I cook,

695
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:48,720
Speaker 1: and by that I mean I am going to school

696
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: for culinary arts and baking and pastry. In the culinary

697
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: and banking, you need to plate food to make it

698
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 1: look appetizing. Whenever I played up food, I know that

699
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: there is a certain way I wanted to look, but

700
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is going to look like.

701
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: Whenever I take a photo of my food or something else,

702
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: I know what I want before I pick up my camera,

703
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: but I can't describe it. I could recognize it, but

704
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: I can't visualize it at all. This is this really

705
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: fascinated me especially. I mean, this is something that comes

706
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: up a lot for me just at work here, because

707
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 1: i'll well, we'll publish a podcast episode and uh and

708
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: generally I'm the one who ends up looking up some

709
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: artwork for it, and I really enjoyed doing that. Robert

710
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: is really good at this way. Well, thank you, But

711
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: I have but sometimes they get into trouble because I

712
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 1: have a it's not a very clear idea of the

713
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: image I want. I'll have a very definite idea for

714
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: what I want and it will be very hard to

715
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:45,920
Speaker 1: shake that even if the options and say Getty images

716
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:50,720
Speaker 1: are are less than forthcoming. And additionally, Joe, you, Christian

717
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: and myself have been engaged with Greg Um, another one

718
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: of our coworkers here in creating a new logo for

719
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: stuff Aloy your Mind. So now I can't out but

720
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 1: but think about that process in terms of of three

721
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:09,879
Speaker 1: actually four individuals with different approaches to visual to mental visualization,

722
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: trying to come up with the same visual um summary

723
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 1: of the brand. Yeah. Absolutely. I again, this is one

724
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: area where sometimes I do wonder. I mean, obviously, I,

725
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm in the typical range of the spectrum,

726
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: but I wonder if I'm kind of low on the

727
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: typical range because I I have a hard time picturing

728
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: what I want for for say, like a logo. I

729
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 1: feel like I'm better at that. This has got to

730
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,479
Speaker 1: be so annoying to you graphic design folks out there.

731
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: But I'm the kind of person who I know what

732
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: I don't want once I see it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,

733
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 1: I'm that guy. But I feel like that's as far

734
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: as I can go. That relates back to our P

735
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: equals MP episode two, right, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. This

736
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 1: is like the the the MP problem, the MP problem

737
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 1: of visualization. Like I can't I can't put it together

738
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: in my mind, but I can check the answer once

739
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: I see it and know if it's right or wrong.

740
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: One more question that came out of this based on

741
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: what Chris was having to say about how his memory works,

742
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: like the ability to replay a memory versus being able

743
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: to recount the memory and bullet points or facts I

744
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 1: would love to see a study on who has more

745
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: accurate factual recall of an event, somebody who has visual

746
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 1: recall of the event, or somebody who has a fantasia

747
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 1: and just remembers it as a series of facts. And

748
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: the obvious conclusion would be, well, somebody who has visual

749
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 1: recall has better recall. But I don't know if I

750
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,760
Speaker 1: would go along with that assumption. I wonder if there's

751
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: more confabulation going on in memory when you're picturing what

752
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 1: you're remembering, because you're just throwing in visual details that

753
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: may or may not have been something you actually saw,

754
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: and that's cluttering up your perception of what the event was.

755
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: I think it's entirely possible that somebody with a fantasia

756
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: might better remember just factual details about something thing that happened. Yeah,

757
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 1: in a way, it's kind of like, you know, you

758
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: watch the TV show and there's there's one department that's

759
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: dealing with the set, another is dealing with props that

760
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: people touch, and then the horse. The actors are doing

761
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: their own thing and they're going off the writing, etcetera.

762
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: So in a way it's like we it's like having

763
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: a set designer who is a little out of step

764
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: with everything else, and it might just throw something in

765
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: that makes absolutely no sense and uh, and it has

766
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what the prop person or the

767
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 1: actors of the writers are putting together. Like like that's

768
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: a little bit what it's like, Um, you know, to

769
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 1: to have to to work with a visual memory. You

770
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 1: have no you have no idea what weird visual clues

771
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,800
Speaker 1: are gonna be thrown in into that very malleable memory

772
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: of what sort of happened. Yeah, And it's like you

773
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: feel like you should have a sense of what the

774
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: falsified elements are, but you don't. They feel as real

775
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: to you as the real elements. And they have been

776
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: studies to prove this out. And one of the more

777
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 1: interesting ones that had to do with the people's memories

778
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:01,720
Speaker 1: of nine eleven, like where they were, what they were wearing. Um,

779
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff, and they're wrong about most of it. Yeah,

780
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: because essentially, and and you know, I don't have all

781
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: the details in front of me, but like one of

782
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: the basic summary of what's happening is the brain is

783
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: focused on something really important, you know, you know, I know,

784
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: essentially getting down to some survival uh programming, and the

785
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: visualization is like, this isn't important. So trust me, you

786
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: were in a red shirt, you're eating a captain crunchy,

787
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: non essential details. It just lies to you. Yeah, I

788
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:30,439
Speaker 1: fill you in because the precise visuals of of your

789
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 1: serial and your shirt do not matter in this scenario.

790
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: But you probably can remember what escape route you were

791
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: planning on thinking of from the building you were in

792
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: or something. Yea. Indeed, Hey, so it looks like we

793
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: need to take a quick break, but we will be

794
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: right back after hearing from the sponsor of this episode. Okay,

795
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: here's another email from our listener l J. L J says,

796
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: I've been reading a lot about a Fantasia ever since

797
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 1: the New York Times article on it earlier this year.

798
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: Count me as one of those people who never realize

799
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: that the mind's eye was anything more than a metaphor.

800
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: Yet again, we're hearing this. I've always known I wasn't

801
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: a visual learner. While I'm a strong reader. I learned

802
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: best by kinesthetically doing something, and then I can refer

803
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: back to written instructions and pictures to remind myself of

804
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: a specific detail. Learned something like tai chi from a video. Yeah,

805
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: not a chance that requires you to take in the

806
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: visual details and flip them in your mind and then

807
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: apply them to your own body too much translation. Same

808
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: thing with reading a map. I'm hopeless with directions and

809
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: am essentially dependent on my GPS even to find my

810
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 1: way to familiar places. I'm a physical therapist by training

811
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: and never had any problems in diagnosing or treating my patients,

812
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: especially when I could use my hands to do the work.

813
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: My biggest problem was trying to draw stick figure exercises

814
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: for them. That's great. Um. Now, I write fiction, and

815
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: when I was a new writer, I used to have

816
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: critique partners tell me I wrote floating heads in black boxes.

817
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: It never occurred to me to spend time on visual description.

818
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: Like the author you talk about, I skipped over long

819
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: rambling descriptions in books. They were meaningless to me. For example,

820
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: epic fantasy tends to spend pages and pages describing setting. Okay,

821
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: I get it, it's a tree. I have the concept

822
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 1: of tree no as firmly in my head. Can we

823
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: please move on? Yeah? I again, I can't really imagine

824
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: what it's like to read this way. Well, the one

825
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: thing that that the one thing that I can I

826
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: can say that relates to this. And I may have

827
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: mentioned this before, but ever ever reading a book and

828
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: you get a pretty firm idea of what that the

829
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: main character or secondary character looks like. Maybe you're you know,

830
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 1: they kind of form out of nothing. Maybe there you

831
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: end up throwing in an actor or someone you know,

832
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: you get a firm idea, and then you're like thirty

833
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: pages in the book and the author mentioned that they

834
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:02,240
Speaker 1: have a mustache. Yeah, they start describe any like, no, stop, yeah,

835
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: the boat has sailed that he had. This character has

836
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: no mustache, they have no ponytail. He can't throw that

837
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: in thirty pages. This is a clean shaven Danny DeVito.

838
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: You can't do this to me. Yeah. So I can

839
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: imagine someone saying, all right, we get it, George, we

840
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: know what they're eating dinner. We got it. Just tell

841
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: me about the dynastic succession here. Okay, yeah, I can

842
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: get it alright, So LJ continues. I have no problem

843
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: being imaginative and capturing these stories and characters that I create,

844
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: and I've learned to layer in visual description because most

845
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: people are reliant on them. One of my strengths in

846
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: writing is dialogue and creating characterization through character interactions. I

847
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: think I'm one of those people who can get flickers

848
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: of occasional visual images, but not volition early. And the

849
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: harder I concentrate on a visual image, the more it

850
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:50,919
Speaker 1: slips away. If you ask me to close my eyes

851
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: and describe my husband of twenty seven plus years, I

852
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: can tell you he has brown eyes and oval face,

853
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: brown hair, a beard, and a mustache. But I don't

854
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 1: see those things. They're just part of the package that

855
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: is him in my mind. My husband is a hyper

856
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: visual spatial person. Over the years, we have had situations

857
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 1: where he will remember something vividly describe it to me,

858
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: but I will have no memory of it until we're

859
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 1: back in the place it occurred or with the people

860
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: he's referencing. UH, and the memory can come flooding back.

861
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: It's as if I need a proximity trigger. I don't

862
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 1: feel as if I have any sort of disability. I'm

863
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,359
Speaker 1: just glad to know that others have the same perceptual

864
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: style as I do, and knowing how my mind works

865
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: allows me to compensate in situations that require strong visual skills.

866
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 1: I enjoy your show very much, Best regards, LJ. Well,

867
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 1: thanks for that email, l J. And I like the

868
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: part you have about whether or not you consider it

869
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: a disability. Obviously you don't. And I think that's something

870
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 1: that we came across in in some of the other

871
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,439
Speaker 1: reading that we did on this. Some people feel sort

872
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: of at a loss because of this condition and other

873
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: people don't. And I wonder what triggers that. Like, So,

874
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 1: if you can't create mental images, what's the difference between

875
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: feeling like you are suffering because of this condition versus

876
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: feeling like it's no big deal, this is just how

877
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: your mind works. Yeah, I mean I feel like that

878
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,240
Speaker 1: the real takeomen is that that everyone has a slightly

879
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: different suite of sensory memories and sensory visual manifestations in

880
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: the mind, you know, um, And it's you know, it's

881
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: hard to say with if one is better than the other,

882
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: like like, for instance, I mean me, I might have

883
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: you know, slightly or a little better visual memory than

884
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:36,799
Speaker 1: some people. But there might be people listening to this

885
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 1: that might think it's awful that I can't actually like

886
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: like that, my memory of saying, you know, rubbing my

887
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: son's head is more descriptive and visual. It's more linguistic

888
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: and visual. As opposed to anything approaching like actual just

889
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 1: sensory memory, like I have even troubled imagining what that

890
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 1: would be like. Yeah, you can't imagine the feeling of

891
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 1: plunging your face into a pie. Oh don't really know what? What?

892
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: What a sad day? Whoa? What's that? Why it's Carney?

893
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 1: Oh no, I see Carney's feeling left out because we've

894
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: been reading listener mail without you, Carney. Well, Carney, see

895
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 1: the issue is this is not a full blown listener

896
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: mail episode. This is very specifically in response to one

897
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: episode we did a couple of weeks ago. So we

898
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 1: weren't trying to hurt your feelings. Uh, we we just

899
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: we just had to get on with it. And frankly,

900
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: we couldn't find you this morning when we were looking

901
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: for you. But oh but you have one for it. Okay,

902
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 1: we covered in rotten fruit, so that makes me think

903
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: you may have been dumpster diving or something. All right,

904
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 1: well we'll read this one. We'll see what do you

905
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: have here for us, Carney. This is one for on

906
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 1: the website that was left on stuff to Blow your

907
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:47,359
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Uh. Steph rights then and says how

908
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:52,240
Speaker 1: to experience a Fantasia. Having completed an eight week Evelyn

909
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: Wood course in speed reading in the late nineteen seventies,

910
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: my class was given a small book of fiction to

911
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 1: read called The Pearl. Unless twenty five minutes, the entire

912
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 1: volume was consumed cover to cover. When finished, everyone else

913
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 1: looked distressed. Not only had speed reading prevented them from

914
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 1: experiencing the book visually like watching a movie, they didn't

915
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: even seem to have much conscious memory at all of

916
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: the course of the story. They were astonished, however, to discover,

917
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 1: as the teacher began quizzing them, that they could still

918
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,320
Speaker 1: answer questions about many of the book's specifics. One woman

919
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: asked whether she could go back to reading the old

920
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: way that she enjoyed more than a little frightened that

921
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: she had exchanged one form of reading permanently for another.

922
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,439
Speaker 1: For my own part, there had been nothing to lose.

923
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: I had never experienced their word movies. I assumed, because

924
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: of dyslexia as well as blind sight in my right eye,

925
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,720
Speaker 1: that I had learned somehow as a child to only

926
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: store my understanding audibly. Thus I could easily read aloud

927
00:47:56,200 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: very well, taking in whole paragraphs and using context correctly.

928
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: Guess the identities of garbled spellings and squished margins before

929
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: concentrating on knowing slash speaking each word allowed speed reading

930
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: only seemed to slightly improve my ability to skim nothing more,

931
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: you know. Actually, the most interesting part of this comment

932
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 1: to me isn't about the a fantasia, but about the

933
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:22,760
Speaker 1: classmate who is afraid that she had permanently exchanged methods

934
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 1: of reading. I wonder if it's possible to do something

935
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, I I've had this experience before

936
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: of uh, trying to read fiction to too quickly and

937
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: then feeling sad about it. I haven't really had this

938
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: much since since I was in school, And like I've

939
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: been assigned a novel to read or something, and I'm like,

940
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: I got it, was read by tomorrow, better finish it tonight. Uh,

941
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: And I just remember thinking, like, man, this is just

942
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: not a way to read a novel. Oh man. I

943
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: have not experienced this in a while, but I'm curious

944
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: if if you've ever experienced this, or any readers have.

945
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: But there have been times where I'm like, I'm heavily

946
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: into into reading a particular the book, and I have

947
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 1: a certain set visual feel for that book. Like the

948
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 1: visual universe of that book is is is pretty consistent. Uh,

949
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: But then I'll do something like watching Miyazaki film one

950
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,799
Speaker 1: night or some other animated film, and then when I

951
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 1: go and try and read the book, suddenly everything is animated.

952
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:23,799
Speaker 1: Everything is in an illustrative mode. Everything resembles the look

953
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: and feel of the animated picture I just saw and

954
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 1: I and I have at times like put down the

955
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: book and said, I'm just gonna wait till tomorrow because

956
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 1: I am not going to engage in this world with

957
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: a different visual motif that's entirely informed by the film

958
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:42,239
Speaker 1: I just consume. It's almost like by watching the film,

959
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: you've taken a drug that alters your your imagery, your

960
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 1: alters your visual processing and puts you in a state

961
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: of mind where you're unable to experience the book as

962
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: you normally would. And maybe, I mean, I've never experienced

963
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: that with with with non animated films. Maybe it works

964
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: too to smaller degree. But you know, like maybe if

965
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 1: you watch a Kubert film and then read your book,

966
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:08,320
Speaker 1: maybe the book is going to be more kubrick esque.

967
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: But but it maybe maybe it's just more pronounced with

968
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 1: something like Miyazaki. But I don't know. I wonder if

969
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:18,240
Speaker 1: the same thing could happen with with like video games,

970
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: you ever, Like like you're reading a book and then

971
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,720
Speaker 1: there's a video game you play that's a little too

972
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 1: close in subject matter to what's going on in the book,

973
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: or something like that, Like you end up you're reading Dracula,

974
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: but you you see all of it is Castlevania too exactly. Well,

975
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: the more recent example I'm thinking, I was like, well,

976
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: what if you're reading Coremick McCarthy's The Road and then

977
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: you start playing The Last of Us on PlayStation kind

978
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: of similar worlds and stories, and you start picturing, getting

979
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 1: the visual uh, the visual imagination all garbled up. Yeah.

980
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 1: I mean that comes back to something we discussed in

981
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: the first episode. So oftentimes, the the visual experience we

982
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 1: have reading a book is so strong that we we

983
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: don't even want to entertain the idea of a film adaptation. Yeah.

984
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: I don't want to look at it. Yeah, because that

985
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 1: is not it. That is not the thing that was

986
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: in my head. It's a it's a clean shaven Danny

987
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: de Vito, And if I have to see otherwise, I'm

988
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,520
Speaker 1: going to kick somebody in the face. All right, Well,

989
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:15,920
Speaker 1: looks like that's all that we have time for today.

990
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 1: But uh, and we unfortunately weren't able to get to

991
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 1: all of your excellent emails, but but thank you so

992
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:24,359
Speaker 1: much for sending those in. We would, like I said,

993
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: we do read all of them, and and they were

994
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: fantastic and we really loved hearing back from you. It

995
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: was it was a treat. Yeah, and we just knew

996
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,359
Speaker 1: that there was so much material here. We just wanted

997
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:34,919
Speaker 1: to go ahead and get it out before we do

998
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:39,280
Speaker 1: one of our more regularly schedule three host listener mail episodes,

999
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: because we didn't want to clog one of those up

1000
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 1: entirely with a Fantasia and we wanted to get these

1001
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:47,439
Speaker 1: out closer to the original publication day. Yes, absolutely, but hey,

1002
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,360
Speaker 1: one more thing we're gonna do. We should put in

1003
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: our landing page for this episode on the website the

1004
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 1: contact information if you want to get in touch with

1005
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 1: that researcher we talked out in the previous episode, Adam's Aman,

1006
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: who has been collecting people who Orien say Fantasia for

1007
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: his research. So so we'll help put you in touch

1008
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:07,760
Speaker 1: there if you are interested in being part of that. Indeed,

1009
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: all right, so once again If you want to get

1010
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: in touch with us, head on over to stuff to

1011
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 1: blow your mind dot com. That's the mother shift. That's

1012
00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 1: where we'll find all of our content, including all of

1013
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: the episode, with landing pages that include links to related

1014
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,439
Speaker 1: content and some outside resources as well. And of course,

1015
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us about

1016
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 1: this or any other episode we've done recently, you can

1017
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:28,800
Speaker 1: email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works

1018
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1019
00:52:41,440 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: Isn't how stuff works dot com has a time to

1020
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: about