POG PUB 2024: A New Year, A New Thread, A New You

No

I am trying to understand how my mind works.

For one thing, I have aphantasia, I literally can't picture anything in my head. All I see is what I have recently learned is called the Eigengrau. But I dream in full 3d surround technicolor.

And I can remember seeing things but I cannot bring this memory into internal vision, whatever that is. So there's no damage preventing it. One theory is the visuals have always been there, I just maybe skipped a development step and don't know how to see it. Another theory is that massive psychological damage causes you to turn the screen off. And turning it back on can be a problem.

Science doesn't think it can be cured. But I have been reading accounts from people who have cured their aphantasia using techniques like Image Streaming. I'm trying it.

I don't even know where the images are supposed to be? But one account said they are IN the Eigengrau, so I am patiently watching small changes in the visual field.

Mental Vision Inshallah.

Can you just picture in your head the thing you are currently looking at? Maybe that's image streaming.

Maybe everyone/no one pictures things in their head but just describe the qualia of thinking about stuff in different terms of experience.

Dunno why you would care about doing it.

As soon as I move from memory to imagination or vision to imagination, it poofs into the Eigengrau.

This is what I want to be able to do.

When I took that IQ test at 4yo I knew I'd score better if I could rotate certain shapes in my head and I knew I just couldn't do it.

The qualia thing is definitely valid. We have no way of actually knowing how other Beings experience Reality.

whoa... that's wild amp....

sounds like it's probably not impossible for you to be able to see things in your mind one day. I mean you literally already see them in your dreams... just sounds like you just currently don't have much(any) control over consciously producing images?

are there any advantages to having a mind that works the way your's does?

I don't know. It's like working at the command line vs Windows, seems like I'd be better off being able to do both.

Interesting.

Is it hard to draw 3d pictures on paper? Do you have a tough time remembering the 6-digit codes to log into websites?

I can't draw at all and don't understand how drawing is even possible. One time, we were playing Pictionary (where did we used to play that? AOL Messenger chat rooms?) and I got "pretzel". That is when I realized that I have no idea what a pretzel is. I remember looking at them and I know that they are pretzel-shaped but I could not reproduce that simple shape in my head or on screen.

However, I've heard musicians say they can't hear music in their head which is wild to me because I can clearly hear complex contrapuntal Bach melodies and I'm a half-ass musician at best.

I don't have any problem remembering codes or pins or a hundred passwords but another part of this is I've been recently looking at memory techniques and every memory champion uses Memory Palaces. Which you can use without visualization but have to be better with it.

Do you mean remembering the six-digit code from the time I read it off the Authenticator to the time I type it into the box? No, I say it subvocally one time and it goes to short-term memory.

I guess I save it as a .mp3 instead of .jpg

wait hold on... are you saying you remember 6 digit numbers by thinking of how they look as a picture? you don't just remember the numbers?

like amp said, mp3 vs jpeg

I would never remember a 6 digit number as if it was a jpeg... like that blows my mind if anyone else remembers numbers that way

I think I do a bunch of things. Like noticing patterns etc... But sometimes when entering the number I just remember the visual digits. And if I do it like that, I can sometimes recall the digits the next day...

This seems inefficient. You have made such a strong mental connection that ephemeral data went into long-term memory.

Yes, like a lot of stuff that you end up remembering for crazy reasons.

Meanwhile, I still have to look at my car's license plate to remind me when entering it into parking machines.

I think I have actively chose to not remember it. Plus that I only need to do it a few times a year.

Amp, any issues in sports? e.g. running to catch a baseball hit in the air?

amp, can you masturbate without porn?

Is reading a book a radically different experience than watching a movie based on the book?

Nope.

I am on antidepressants sir, I can barely masturbate with it.

Literature is a huge issue. I am obviously never picturing anything as I go. Sometimes I just radically cannot understand what is happening and who people are. Some books it's no issue. Probably why I favor certain authors. Cormac McCarthy always works.

Faces are the worst. I can't remember what anyone looks like. Even beloved people and pets. I have a list of irl people and who they are in Google Keep.

thank the creator for cormac McCarthy!

Squid Game: Season 2 just became available on Netflix Canada. I'm excited, yet cautious. I always worry about the follow up to something so great.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/vInVQy...

xander, how accurate is this person’s assessment of 2024 in film?

I think the last movie I saw in theaters was The Case for Christ.

I might have gone lower if you'd told me there were 298 movies in the theater this year.

in the last 20+ years I've been to:

0 concerts
10ish restaurants
1 baseball game
1 movie
0 football
0 basketball
5ish plays(all tiny theaters with friends in the play)
1 cruise

I can't think of anything else I did.

I might never catch a plane again. I can't imagine going to another concert. I went to one rave in my life. nightmare. I went to one club in my life. nightmare. I went to a strip club twice in my life. nightmare.