#aphantasia is so weird

[emerdoodls]

does anyone else with aphantasia ever say "i always pictured..." then realize you never pictured that bc you don't ever picture anything and you also thought that picture this was a metaphor so you don't say it in a literal way but everyone else will take it literally and ask you what you mean bc "don't you not get the pictures in your head??"

[nevermore-ramblings]

guess who just discovered they have aphantasia!

[djosephqueery]

I wanted to post Eddie's lines from my exchange piece on their own, because I am still really proud of these.

[they--slash--them]

the tree house thing from my dreams is still occupying my mind space? it was weird. also b4 i left the likeness of my first year teacher in primary school held up her hand to me and i thought she was waving goodbye so i waved back but then she got upset with me bc it meant she wanted a hug actually? wow cloud misreading social cues even in your dreams ahahahha

[bobendsneyder64]

This is so weird. I just found out, through a random instagram story, that I have a condition called Aphantasia. This means that I cannot see mental images. My brain is just words, I never see anything. I always thought that that was normal and thought that the people who could see stuff were special. Guess it's the other way around. Huh, this is a really weird day

[anarkhebringer]

Y'know there's a lot of shit going on in my head that immediately makes more sense once I remember I have aphantasia

[oflgtfol]

cat violence

[phlegmspitter]

Man I love drawing something I think is cool but then I realise it's a carbon copy of something I saw a while back in a show or something and I woooyeah

[yearofthediamond-dogs]

I'm christian now

[crypticroyals]

I always found it strange why some people always said things like "oh yeah I'm an empath! you're aura is bad"

Um, that's not how that works.

An empath scientifically speaking is basically:

Scientists found special group of brain cells that specialize compassion. Basically an empath is just stronger brain bits that pick up other people's moods way easier. The cells allow us to mirror emotions of others we see and such. Which is why if you have a galfriend sobbing over a breakup you might feel a bit sad too. An empath would potentially also cry cause the cells are stronger. The brain is weird and makes us weird and that's what's fun about humanity.

There's different types of empaths too. They're not really "types" but more like, one person stubs their right toe and you feel it vaguely or strongly on your own toe.(this one is fucking weird. Might do more research on it and make another post about it) and another which I think I have but could be totally wrong is something called an intuitive empath. Why it's called "intuitive" I have no god damn clue but it's basically like before (brain bits) and they pick up other people's brain bits. Cause everything is ✨hormones✨ this is why some animals can "smell fear" aka they pick up chemical cues. Research doesn't say intuitive empaths smell shit but they can be like "hey what's wrong?" When the person is neutral cause they "sense" they're upset.

However some places are just "ohhh they're Physic" no. We're not phycic. We're just strong brain bits. Some more so than others. We're not some fantasy superpower.

Edit: I almost forgot. The mirror neurons brain bits is in the bit of the brain called the anterior insular cortex

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my boyfriend to stop watching porn?

This is pretty simple tbh. NSFW mentions of porn, sex, and masturbation.

🐣🐣

I am a transgender man and struggle a lot with sexual intimacy. I don’t think I’m on the ace spectrum, I just have a lot of insecurities and dysphoria that I’m working through. I still crave sexual intimacy, I just get very anxious about it. My boyfriend is understanding but a little pushy at times because he’s got a high sex drive. He doesn’t do it on purpose and backs off when I tell him to. Important to mention that my boyfriend is cis. So, because of this, my boyfriend usually takes care of himself. I help out whenever I feel comfortable.

Recently, we somehow started talking about porn and hentai (don’t remember the context of the conversation) and I asked him what he does when he takes care of himself. He said he watches porn, which I was surprised to hear but it makes sense because he has aphantasia. So, he can’t really imagine me or anything. Sometimes he uses my photos, but he said he needs some movement. At first I was fine with it, but then he mentioned that he only watches straight porn.

Now, I know my reaction was out of line, because I started crying and calling him an asshole for watching straight porn when he’s dating a trans guy. He’s pansexual, so he can really watch any kind of porn he wants, but I just started freaking out for some reason.

He kept telling me that there was no good gay stuff or ftm stuff, which is just straight up not true. There’s plenty of ftm nsfw content, but when I mentioned that, he said it felt weird and fetishistic.

I told him it hurts me when he watches straight porn, he said that’s stupid and he needs something to get off to. Fair enough but it still hurts me. There’s just something about me trying so hard to get past my anxiety and dysphoria so we can finally be intimate with each other and him blatantly disrespecting my gender identity that hurts like hell.

Plus, every time I suggested we do something that I’m into, he shot me down. I’m a bit of a kinkier guy and he’s very vanilla, despite insisting that he’s into the same stuff as me. I 100% respect his boundaries and never brought it up again. But I don’t think it’s fair that he won’t even try stuff with me that might make intimacy more enjoyable for me and then goes and watches straight porn. I keep trying to make our sex live work and he can’t even be bothered to figure out ftm bodies. Idk.

I talked to an online friend and they called me biphobic.

Am I out of line for trying to tell him what kind of porn to watch? Am I overreacting?

[copperbadge]

Okay so wait a minute, with this aphantasia thing. I don’t think I have aphantasia because I process audio fine, in fact I prefer not to have any visual, but apparently there is some relationship between it and ADHD. I’m not trying to be confrontational in any of this but I’m bewildered by the idea of mentally picturing things you listen to or read about. It’s bothered me since I posted the ask. 

I can picture things in my head, if I stop and make a conscious decision to build them, but if I’m doing that I can’t do anything else -- I can’t listen to a podcast and picture it in my head and also do something with my hands. Come to think of it I probably couldn’t even keep up with the podcast if I was trying to picture it in my head, I’d struggle to choose which things to imagine and by the time I got them built they’d have moved on. It never feels like a very useful thing to do, because I’ve already got the words, that’s the important part, and I’d rather be doing stuff. I just assumed that most of the time when people talk about picturing stuff they’re either doing it very deliberately, like a guided meditation, or they’re being poetic, like people don’t actually do that, we just say we do as a way of describing someone thinking about something.

So, I’m listening to a podcast in which the host reads a letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to his brother, discussing his brother’s relationship with his wife (“she’s still young, let her dance if she wants, don’t lock her up with the kids all day.”) If you see images in your head when you hear audio, are you seeing the host reading off a sheet of paper, or Napoleon writing the letter, or Napoleon talking to his brother, or are you seeing Napoleon’s brother being mean to his wife? If you don’t know what any of these people look like, do you just make something up? 

Jesus Christ, when people read erotica do they picture the sex happening? What’s that like? You just get porn in your head involuntarily? I mean, not involuntarily, you’re choosing to read the text, but it just shows up when you do? 

Writers, when you write do you get mental images as you go? I often will pause in writing to build a mental image in my head and then describe it but as soon as I do it disappears, and it’s mostly a waste of time so I really only do that when I need to describe a space that people are moving around in (like the fishing lodge with the kitchen bar dividing the living room and kitchen, I do have several mental “camera snaps” of that setup, but I don’t picture it when I’m writing about it). 

This might explain why I always get yelled at for not describing people in my books. It’s simply unimportant to me 99% of the time and awkward to try and insert it the other 1%. I don’t picture people in my head when I read -- they’re a personality, a collection of characteristics. My characters don’t have faces to me, like how people in dreams don’t have faces, you just know who they are. I describe them but that’s just words I really like, or I pick out people who already exist and just say “oh they look like that”. Obviously when someone wants a description I do my best to supply it, but in prose it’s just not important. 

This is genuinely blowing my mind. This is why people always want descriptions of things! They get to see the descriptions! Reading a book must be like going to an art gallery anytime you want without moving. Is that what it’s like? Is this super common, like am I the weird one, or is this just like for people with super vivid imaginations? 

[thebibliosphere]

i just started hunger pangs and ursula immediately going “hm. that’s weird why did that happen” after being extremely injured instead of “wow!! i am extremely injured!!” tells me immediately that this is going to be in my top books of all time

(also i have to say the descriptions in here are So vivid it feels like im watching a movie and that doesnt normally happen so like props to you)

Hgskl. Ursula is such a mood sometimes. I'm enjoying writing her scenes in book 2 atm.

And thank you! As someone with aphantasia who can't visualize my own world, that's quite the compliment. 😅

[ghost-of-a-system]

hi, we are autistic and also have aphantasia and alexithymia.

and we where wondering what you guys do when you don't know who's fronting, like that limbo of bodily autopilot where nothings going on inside the head and we all just blend together into an incoherent mess

we can't tell if someone new is fronting or if we think we are faking it again.

thanks

hey, thanks for reaching out! im not sure if we have alexithymia; we dont know much about it. but we do have aphantasia and autism, so ill try my best.

i think its an autism thing, but we mask a whole heck of a lot around basically... everyone but each other. if you or someone else is unsure what i mean by "masking", its basically just altering (no pun intended...) your behavior in order to outwardly appear "normal" to other people. pretty sure it can be both manually done or subconsciously. its usually subconscious for us personally. but for us, this "persona" we mask as is kinda hard and unnecessary to describe, but the point would be that it isnt really similar to any of our alters. we also do a lot of mirroring others, as in, involuntarily copying their personalities, speech patterns, etc., which plays into our masking.

when we are blurry or more "on autopilot" as you described, we tend to revert to this even more. since there isnt a distinct enough alter around to, at the very least, hog our train of thought, our brain just defaults to that masking persona. but this still happens a lot when we do know whos fronting; they subconsciously mask/mirror so much so that their identity becomes indistinguishable to even them. in all honesty, this usually doesnt go away until we either are alone again or something triggers someone specific out (sorta snapping us out of the masking for a bit). sometimes the someone specific is even who was fronting before good ol masking took over; it just kind of grounds them to their actual self instead.

overall it just makes it impossible for us to tell when we are just genuinely blurry or just masking to the max. we usually just default to assuming that were blurry until enough clarity kicks in to say otherwise.

as far as the "thinking it could be a new alter" thing, we definitely relate to that too. we kinda have a whole, system in place (no pun intended...?) to help with that. when it comes to masking, particularly mirroring, we typically mirror other people/characters/etc. to the point that we genuinely feel like a new person. oftentimes to the point that we feel like we are them. many times in the past its so intense that it puts us under the impression that theres a new person to add to the bunch.

i think one of us has talked about it in the past here, but im too lazy to go fishing for it. basically, we might log it, like in our simply plural, usually. keeping the profile on private and just logging that this potential new guy is fronting. we usually give it a week or two to see if they ever front again or if we can still 'feel their presence' later on, in simple terms. for us, majority of the time theyre gone, 'cause they never existed to begin with. but thats just because we mirror so much and so intensely, not sure if thats something other systems can relate to. we also just arent a large system, and while it isnt uncommon for us to split, its even less common that they stick around past a week or two.

its a weird cycle. but it doesnt mean youre faking or anything. just one of the weird ways things mix, especially being a system and having something like autism. they dont always function separately, at least in our experience.

-s

[evilyn-is-gay]

Anyone want some cute/funny ass headcanons in my TSAMS Reality (reality shifting)?

Cuz here you go

Dazzle:

- I play with them and Jack, we’re like a legion of chaotic children (I keep them in check)

- We sometimes snuggle

- They taught me how to do a turnsie!

- They like pets (like on their head)

- They love it when I draw them (we have little drawing sessions, they have a really charming chibi style that a child would use)

- Sometimes steals my Therian tail and runs around with it

- I keep all the drawings they give me

Sun:

- Pansexual but is so fucking oblivious (EXAMPLE: Sun: Oh he has a neat design. Moon: … why are your fans whirring louder- Sun: What do you mean? Moon: It’s obvious you’re attra- Sun: Dramatic gasp and the whirring gets louder as his face heats up WHAAT??? NOOOO)

- Sits in the closet in his room to be covered in plushies when he needs to calm down

- Big squishy and plushie collection (Lets everyone borrow)

Moon:

- Aro/ace but MIGHT like men a little

- Bro listens to music to cope (me too bro 😔)

- Hyper fixated on science (and has since he discovered it while conjoined with Sun in the first year)

- Has a huge collection of fidget toys

- Sometimes he’s trying to explain something but he says it in his head or just says gibberish thinking we understand

- Has fictional ‘crushes’ but it’s just like ‘yo he’s hot I think’ and Sun goes ‘… what’

- Whenever he’s mad he walks into his room (or any room with a pillow/blanket) and screams into it and just comes back out like nothing happened (If he didn’t he would actually explode and start to stim aggressively) (EDIT: I love that this is canon now)

- Did actually enjoy having a tail as a furry but would never say it aloud

- Listens to that one song that used to play for intros to sleep

- His pupils get bigger when he’s excited like a cat (same with the opposite)

Lunar:

- His hyperfixation on bean bags is fading away and he desperately needs a new one (I want to get him to read fanfic)

- His hyperfixations over time are: Bean bags, plushies, LOL dolls, Trolls, Stars, Astrology, creepy pasta, cooking, art, phobias, Baldi’s basics, slime, and ASMR

- Listens to ASMR videos as he charges

- Forgets that not everyone is an animatronic sometimes and says things to kids that don’t make sense

- Will infodump about the weirdest shit (Last night i dreamed i was a bottle of ketchup ass shit)

- Steals my clothes and wears them around the house when he washes his (he just wears my sweaters and those donut pants I have)

- Even when he isn’t washing his clothes he sometimes wears my huge purple sweater thing

- His favorite types of ASMR are wood soups, slimes, and ones that ask questions like an interview

Earth:

- When in distress she floofs up her hair too much and it sticks out weird

- Has HUGE plushies she snuggles

- Has a habit of sticking her face into things that look soft

- loves stardew valley, Animal Crossing, and those Roblox games that are really aesthetically pleasing

- Mental disorders are her special interest/hyper fixation and she spouts it to me

- Her Roblox character is stunning and looks beautiful, she worked on it for a while

- Plays along with ASMR Roleplays

- Tingle immune 😔

- Talks to a Monty plushie when she’s upset, another coping mechanism she picked up

Solar:

- Doesn’t understand some pop culture references due to being isolated by his Moon

- Finds this universe Monty as a significant upgrade to his

- Draws himself as a human

- Amazing at art like holy shit (style is sorta like all the thumbnail artists mixed together)

- Has Aphantasia (BECAUSE I DO AND I NEED REP)

- This has happened → Moon: Hey Solar, have you seen Candice? | Solar: … Who’s Candice..? | Sun: MOON NO. | Moon: CANDICE DI- (Solar slapped him in the face afterwards)

Bloodmoon:

- has been high (I will not elaborate)

Castor:

- “Lunar, what’s a ‘skibidi rizz’?” *COMPLETELY DEADPAN AND MONOTONE*

There’s other characters but these are fun/cute ones 😭😭😭

I know these aren’t canon (a lot of the stuff in general in these aren’t canon and have been debunked) but I don’t care and they’re still part of this so fuck you

[plantify]

Random tangent but Aphantasia is so weird

Like I used to think that whenever people would say "imagine this" or "visualize that" that it was more metaphorical. Not that they could legitimately see it

Despite my inability to see images with my mind's eye while I'm conscious, I still have super vivid dreams with sight and all

And AGAIN despite me having aphantasia, I can still IMAGINE the image in my head and KNOW what it would look like if I COULD see it, sorta like having sight without actually having sight if that makes sense

Apparently the rest of my family doesn't have aphantasia, it's just me who does

I wonder what it's like being an artist WITHOUT aphantasia