How do you see things in your mind?

The other day (or was it yesterday?) i did an instalive talking about some stuff + visual spectrum.

Which will be the main topic for today's blogpost weeee~

To be honest, i found this on twitter 😆 

If it weren't for my curiosity, i would have just scroll past it!

Thankfully my curiosity & the twitter post made me discover something about myself!

Anywayz,

Now, after you read this sentence, close your eyes for 5 seconds and imagine an apple.

5 seconds later~

Ok now. How did your apple look like, based on the image down here?

Does your apple in your mind looks real, 3D, like you can see the details of it, siap nampak garis-garis, or where it is, like is it in your hand, is it floating, is it touchable?

Or does it look like it's on a piece of paper, 2D? Is it just a colour? An outline?

Or nothing at all. Just a "concept".

Number 1 being "hyperphantasia" and 5 being "aphantasia".

The ones in between, i don't know what they're called buehehehe.. sorry.. 😅

Did this blow your mind? 

It did mine! Because i just found out that i'm number 5, which means i have aphantasia 😂

Please do bear in mind that this is not a disability, a disorder or a problem at all. It's just how our brains work and there's no right or wrong here, but it does help in helping see our ability in "seeing" things.

Here's my story see.

Once upon a day, my husband and i were talking & discussing about business matter and it involved calculations. 

Now, i'm not bad at maths. I'm good at it actually. But as my husband was explaining the concept, or theory of the matter we were discussing about, i got truly frustrated because i want him to write it down for me, whereas for him, i should be able to "see" it already as per how he'd been explaining it.

Since i couldn't completely get what he's saying and him not understanding why i couldn't see it, i just stopped talking and cried by myself in the room because i just got too frustrated.

Before you get any ideas (or bad impression), we weren't arguing or anything. It was a real discussion. But i cried because i felt stupid and my ego refused to let him see me looking like one, and because i don't know how to tell him that i really couldn't see what he's trying to say.

Kejap je i nangis pun. Baring-baring, tengok youtube, gelak-gelak, pastu ok la. Move on terus.

A few days later, i found the twitter post about this topic! "The Mind's Eye", you can call it.

And i got excited and showed it to my husband, and turns out, he's a 1 while me a 5.

So you see the difference? 

He can visualise things in his mind and it doesn't require hard focus. He can basically create his own world in his mind. He even said "no wonder i can be lost in my thoughts", and he even boleh khayal lama-lama. 

In contrast to me, i can't khayal lama-lama sebab my khayalan tak vivid. It's more of feelings, emotions. I think my brain compensate my inability to "see" with empathy. That's why i remember events in my life based on how it felt at the time. 

BTW!! Being an aphantasia does not mean i'm not able to imagine or remember or recognise people 😂😂 i know how my kids look like, my parents, etc without having to struggle. But their images in my mind is not like a movie reel or photos. It's like flashes of... stuff. Look i don't know how to explain it 😅

When i told this to my family and friends, they all ask me the same thing; "Tapi... you suka baca buku?"

YES! And i especially love fiction novels. Sci-fi, mystery, fantasy.. 😁

How then, being someone who cannot conjure fictional images in my mind, enjoy reading stuff that REQUIRES creating images or simply put, use imagination?

Well well well my dear chingus,

I have no idea too, but it was never a "world" or like how you see it on the movie screen. My Harry Potter world doesn't look like the movies at all! The moving stairs, the high towers, thestrals, gnomes, Diagon Alley, they all exist in my mind, but without images 😂

It was like "oh i understand that the stairs can move", but there's no image. Just a "concept". HAHAHAHA!

OMG IT IS HARD TO EXPLAIN.

But just so you know, yes i can enjoy reading, and i can imagine stuff, but it's not like how you imagine it la kot. If some things i cannot understand, i will have to google it out, and see it via images. Like how i read Words of Radiance, some stuff i have to google to know what it looks like. So having things in image or written down helps a lot. It's no wonder when i studied dulu, i have to write down repetitively stuff i want to remember because i don't "see" it in my mind, i have to build on memory. My husband (and i assume my genius friends too) can remember to the point he can see the page, the paragraph etc, however, it's not to the point that he has photographic memory like Mike Ross in Suits tu. 

And like i said, to compensate my non-ability to create images, my brain uses empathy and kinda use the stuff i have seen personally in my memory. So based on those, i can create my own world.

Camtu laaa~

Interesting kan???

My husband and i were so excited when we know about this because now we understand each other better and know how we "see" things!

Some people can visualise a future they haven't seen to the extent of how they look like. Some people can't see but rather can feel something eventhough they have never experienced it before.

It's not a flaw, kekurangan, disorder or whatever negative terms you can think of. It's just how different we're all made to be!

I highly recommend people to just do this basic test (using the pic i used tadi), on how you all see your "apple" in your mind's eye. This way, we'd be able to understand how we all learn, how others learn, and then we can communicate our ideas better.

KAN!

You can google this out yourself i guess.

What is Aphantasia

Aphantasia & Hyperphantasia

With this discovery, i said to my husband, "Yang... sorry la... dapat bini dyslexic pastu aphantasia lak tu..".

Husband said, "alaa.. as long as you are supportive of me, take care of our family, benda ni takde hal la".

*심쿵*😚