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Everyday imagination with Ronja
91 Plays4 months ago
What is the experience of imagining a gremlin on someone’s shoulder? How do people imagine music, sounds, time and emotion? How is imagination used to find keys and remember names?
Vynn and Francis chat with Ronja about her imagination, covering a wide range of topics that may inspire you to ask your own friends and family what happens in their minds.
As someone mostly aphantasic, Francis quizzes Ronja about how she imagines a gremlin on a friend’s shoulder. How solid is it? Does it rotate with the world? Is it alive, and to what extent is it under conscious control?
The conversations continues on the topics of imagining emotion, smell and music. Then it gets practical, discussing how imagination can be used to find things lost in your house, navigate to a destination and assemble furniture.
What are different ways people remember names, and what techniques can improve that? How do people imagine while watching movies and reading books, and what is it like to imagine emotions?
Timestamps:
00:48 Gremlin on your shoulder
04:27 Aliveness of the gremlin
05:43 Emotion, smell and sound
07:07 Imagining music
10:20 Sounds and memories
13:40 Harry Potter
15:10 Looking for keys
19:13 Phantasia coaching
21:27 Shape rotating
23:42 Navigation
28:02 Names and faces
34:14 Visualising time
39:15 Emotion, books, movies
46:16 Imagine an apple
Show Links:
- SET by PlayMonster - pattern matching card game
- Mind’s Eye Mentorship - formerly called AphantasiaMeow
- Mind’s Eye Courses - also by AphantasiaMeow
- Visualisations of calendars - Twitter thread
- Manar’s Twitter account - the gremlin was on his shoulder
Contact Details:
Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!
Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcus
Email: [email protected]
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello
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Transcript
Introduction and Meet the Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Imagine Apple, the podcast about inner mental experience with my co-host Vin. Hi Vin. Hi Francis. Yep. I'm Francis. And today we've got an interview with Ronya who has an imagination. So this is a very general interview to going to cover all sorts of things about Ronnie's
First Podcast Experience
00:00:18
Speaker
inner mental experience. Hello Ronya. Hi, uh, the pleasure to be on a podcast. I've never been on a podcast before. Yeah,
Imagining Gremlins
00:00:25
Speaker
I mean, it's quite unusual. So what our mutual friend Manar was having lunch with you, I think. yes And he sent me this message saying, oh, I got my friend Rania to imagine a gremlin on my shoulder, ah which is kind of interesting.
00:00:47
Speaker
And I thought it would be nice to ask about the gremlin. How did that come about? What was happening? I think we we jumped into a conversation about aphantasia. And I don't actually know how the gremlin appears. I think it just did. I don't even think he got me to do that. I think he may have said something like, oh yeah, well, can you imagine things? And I was like, yeah, I can imagine. ah and And there it was, you know, it just, it's quite quick. It can happen very quickly. And it's not exactly a gremlin, is it? It's like a little monster or something. Can you describe? I don't know what gremlins look like. So I wouldn't have used that word, but ah it's a ah furry blue little monster with with a long
00:01:24
Speaker
tail in the shape of a, a lightning bolt, I suppose. Uh, yeah. Uh, about as big as Monar's head. Maybe it's a little bit smaller. That's, that's about and is it. Does it would look like a little Pokemon? No, uh, maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah. I guess there are some, there are Pokemons coming in all sorts of shapes and, and, uh, and looks. so And was it doing anything like moving and alive?
Integrating Imagination with Reality
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but nothing's nothing massive. Are you thinking of like a blue pika tube in or something like that? Yeah, because you like you mentioned, having a lightning light ha maybe that's where it was coming from. know exactly That was the inspiration of my imagination as possible. And so the next thing I want to ask is quite hard to ask, which is how to what extent is it integrated into the real world? And to what extent is it just like in a second screen in your mind's eye?
00:02:17
Speaker
And this is really hard to get the worst for describing, but if you can have a go. oh hard yeah I think it's, it's probably more like a second screen. It's obviously not there. Like it's very clearly not actually there, but I, it's almost like I take a picture of what I see and I impose something onto it on a second screen. So I take the picture of the real world into my other screen and impose onto it. And then I can place it climate kind of over it with, with like, you know, did you ever projectors in school and, and you would like you'd have some text on it and maybe the professor or teacher would write on top of it an additional marker. It's a bit like that, except the screen, I can move it away and look at it here or put it back onto the real world. And I could take the real world with me into the imagination as well. So you were imagining a manor as well as the gremlin? Yeah, I would. I mean, it's not as solid, obviously, if I take it away, but it's very clearly still the same thing.
00:03:10
Speaker
And spatially, is it like co-located with the real world, like where the gremlin will be in the real world, or is it like in a different spatial pocket? No, it's definitely sitting on Mano's shoulder. And if you turn your head and look another way, it'll still be over to the real head. But I can move it. I can move the whole picture elsewhere, right, on my second screen, my internal second screen. But it has a position, yes, in the real world. What's its opacity like? Like, is it opaque, transparent, translucent, somewhere in between? On my second screen, it would be solid, right? um it's That is a question I kind of struggled with when I was thinking about it, because it's not not real. So yeah let me have it let me have a look. So so I'm basically a-fantasic, but Vin is reasonably fan fantastic.
Autonomy of Imagined Characters
00:03:56
Speaker
Vin, how does this compare to if you were imagining a gremlin on someone's shoulder?
00:04:00
Speaker
It seems pretty much like how I would imagine a grandparent on someone's shoulder, you know, like there's a second screen, but like obviously it's hard to describe to people that but i just what question I just asked because it can be as opaque or as translucent as I want it to be, right? And I know it's like not real and Rania has a similar relationship ah with her imagination. Anything else anyone wants to say about the grandparent? I'm sure you can onto other things. it's not just and For me, it's not just ah an image, right? It's ah it's it's a a creature, right? so like
00:04:32
Speaker
When you ask me, is it still, does it move? I was a little bit taken aback because of course it moves. Like of course it's got character and it's got like, and I suppose I don't immediately know. It's not immediately that I have all the answers. If you ask me questions about it, I'd have to think about it. Right. And maybe I'm imposing those as we go along, if you ask me questions, but it feels very like I was going to say real, but obviously it's not real. It feels very alive. Alive? Yeah, it's ah it's a thing. it's a real it's a It's a real thing of the imagination. and it's independent
00:05:03
Speaker
from your imagine like Does it move independently of your control over it? like How much control do you have? I would assume I have full control, but I think I'd probably give it space. can you go Can you let it go on autopilot is what I'm asking. o I mean, the way I would say that is i would i would um if you asked me a question about it, I wouldn't make a decision in my head and go, it's doing this now. I would look i would kind of look at it and it would do something. So you could say that it has has a certain space
00:05:34
Speaker
for its own like control itself. But in reality, of course, it's it my imagination. you know Something in my head has decided it's doing this, right? So if I saw a real gremlin, as well as visual
Imagination and Emotional Impact
00:05:46
Speaker
stimulus, I guess I might hear it, but also I would have like a reaction to it, like an emotional reaction, or I would know the gremlin might be afraid or happy or friendly. would It would impact my mood, right? So it sounds a bit like it is doing that to you as well. So it's like a fool as if that actually was there. Yeah, it can if I pay attention to it. It's interesting because I kind of said it in passing, it wasn't very important to me and we might have never, you know, spoken on it again and it may have therefore kind of disappeared back into wherever it came from very, very quickly. But because we started talking about it.
00:06:19
Speaker
it was there throughout the lunch. yeah Okay, another question. As you were speaking about like the gremlin, did it also have happen to have other features such as sound like smells or did you not notice it before? and No, I don't. I mean, like I think it smells for sure or not. I can't imagine smell really. That's really difficult. Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine what kind of create the experience of a certain smell and I can't like i can't really do that. What about sounds? Maybe like ah the feeling that's associated with the smell maybe, but not the smell itself. So that's definitely not something I would be able to do. Versus sounds, sounds an interesting one because I can probably, yeah, I can imagine sounds, but they are a lot less, I'm much less able to have them imposed on the real world. Right. Okay. Interesting.
00:07:07
Speaker
And I'm quite musical, so i sounds are really important to me, music's really important to me, songs are very tied to emotions for me. And so I've never thought about creating sounds in my head. When I think about composers who are able to hear an entire piece of music in their head, or even conductors when they look at scores, they can hear it, the whole thing. I can't do that. so um I always thought that was crazy and kind of incredibly impressive. Yeah. Maybe something to look into. Maybe you can get a composer or conductor on your podcast. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we we really want to do that. But you can imagine sounds like in memory.
Limitations in Imagination Abilities
00:07:44
Speaker
It's it's just you can't imagine a sound from the score, but can you remember a song and you hear the song?
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, but normally i would I would remember it by expressing it. So like singing it or or or humming it. or i have to kind of I have to hum inside. I can't just... So I'm not actually humming, but it feels like I'm humming. Yeah, that's like articulatory in a voice yeah thing as opposed to audio. hearing Hearing... Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I have to create it. It's not just there. I suppose that's the difference. So you wouldn't hear the instrument that played originally in your head then. It would be hearing yourself humming it. Sorry, I'm just, I'm testing. I'm testing just a second. It's very quiet, testing. Feel free to sing. Yeah. I actually think it's hard for me to imagine it being a different, imagine is obviously the wrong word here now. What's the word for sounds that you can imagine? We're going to like, we we need to like standardize this vocabulary at some point, but like, um, imagine just applies to like the whole sensory modality. And if you want to like an image eyes, then you reserve that for like the visual stimuli. I mean, it all dies it.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, this is interesting because this is about the level of my audio imagination in that I can sing in my with my articulatory voice in my mind, but I can't hear instruments. But my sense is quite a lot of people can like remember certainly four instruments in a rock band in some detail and play a whole song to them. You can do that, Vin. I can do that. But what do you mean by that? Are you asking me or like Francis? Well, either of you. Yeah. what What is it that can you describe what that means? Because it does sound like something I might be able to do. So I can imagine like a symphony, like an orchestra right now with at least four different melodic lines and like four different instruments playing at the same time. And I think if I try to like imagine any more than that, that's when like
00:09:35
Speaker
I'm blown. But ah the strings, the percussions, the woodwinds, I can imagine them like quite clearly. And it doesn't take too much effort. um So that kind of like musical imagination in my head comes relatively easy. And I think this is what some a lot of people like struggle with. Yeah, no, I can't do that. I can do one at a time. And that's kind of what I was talking about when I talked about composers or conductors who are able to do that, but with a lot more instruments. Yeah, there's accounts of people doing it with hundreds and schools that were never played and were really complicated because they were too hard to play and they played them centuries later and they sounded right because the person had heard them in their minds here. Exactly. It's quite amazing. While we're talking about sound, so you mentioned something about ah triggering songs when things happen like people or
00:10:28
Speaker
I think it's more memory, maybe. Yeah. Oh, memories. Yeah. So for me, memories are incredibly visual, but they're but other senses also conjure up memories very vividly, and that includes smell and sound. And so if, if if let's say, if you introduced me to a song. Well, we don't have really have a very close relationship, but if we if we had a close relationship and you introduced me to a song at a certain time in my life, um and I heard the song later, it would be it would pull me back exactly to that, which is sometimes great and sometimes crap, because some people introduce me to really great music and I cannot untangle it from the person or from the time it was introduced to me. I've got a great story. so you yeah So it's when you physically hear the song, it's triggering a visual memory.
00:11:13
Speaker
Uh, I think I could probably do that. Yeah. But it's more of a feeling and a memory. Memory doesn't have to be visual. Yeah. So you're right. My memory is very visual as in like, I think I remember. I don't think about it that way, but if you ask me, it is definitely visual. I might see the person in my mind's eye. I might, but it's more the feeling of the, of the relationship potentially. Let's say it's an ex-boyfriend or most recently I was made redundant from a job.
Music and Memory
00:11:39
Speaker
Let's say my junior had. but Actually, there are a few very good bands that she introduced me to. So if I hear those now, I will be kind of thrown back into that, the but the combinations of emotions from that time. It's kind of a, yeah, very, very intertwined. Yeah. So that's the emotional memory, which I haven't heard many people talk about in great detail. So I can remember emotions as well. I will have that in that something might remind me of something that happened, even though I didn't get any visual imagery. Yeah, I would see her face and her hair, which is part of her face, I suppose.
00:12:09
Speaker
and and have the feelings of the time. And then I would probably, it often triggers a bit of a a video sequence of things in terms of imagery. It's not just like a stand, a still image. I would probably kind of start reminiscing through the shared experience, whatever that is. Yeah. And how prominent is the audio component of this video have sequence? The audio doesn't feature. It's more that I've now heard the song. And it throws me back. So it doesn't actually, there's no audio element to that. Except if I think about, I can imagine, I can remember and hear again what people have said and how they said it. So maybe if there's some sort of conversation that I reminisce over, I can, I can hear that. I can hear the tone of voice and the person's, yeah, the person's voice. And it isn't very clear. It's a little bit like.
00:12:59
Speaker
You know, people who are phototagenic photogenic, they'll really see the exact picture. For me, it's more, it's not as good. It's kind of the the focus isn't perfect. Yeah. Yeah. It's more schematic. You get the gist of it rather than the crisp details. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that layering for all of the senses is really interesting. But my sense is, yeah, you can push it back further and further to more granular detail the actual sense or to just the response to the sense. And there's loads of levels of that, because I definitely have all the later levels where I remember the response to the thing. And even though I don't have very much of the actual sense, that's really ah super interesting.
00:13:36
Speaker
I don't know if if if you ever want to use this, but um so so one of my, the things that I can never untangle and it's really ridiculous, but also kind of funny is that when I was around 10, I got the Harry Potter books for Christmas one and two. And my brother got the CD for Buena Vista Social Club, um which is a brilliant Cuban band and and it's ah it's a really, really great music. So he put it on repeats and I didn't notice. So I finished both of those books that night and kept listening to this one album over and over and over again. And now whenever I hear Buena Vista Social Club, I am immediately in Hogwarts or wherever, you know, Harry Potter. It's just the weirdest connection. It makes no sense to anybody else. But it's it's just completely entwined. There is no way I will ever be able to untangle that and hear Buena Vista Social Club without thinking of Harry Potter. And even if I read Harry Potter now, I probably would also kind of get the sense or the feeling that the music evokes.
00:14:34
Speaker
yeah as well. It is so odd. It's fascinating, isn't it? How often this is happening in people. So when we're having conversations with people and they the person's recalling something that we might not conceive of or something's happening in them. And sometimes people say, yeah but most of the time it's not really appropriate or doesn't really fit with the conversation. You kind of can't say, oh, I suddenly have this memory of this thing. or yeah And yeah, it's actually quite significant to them emotionally during the conversation and probably having quite an impact on the conversation, but it's very invisible. Yeah, that's very true. The emotional impact can be pretty big, but it might not be appropriate to bring it up. Right. let's Let's move on to talk about, i kept well, practical things, tooling. I would describe that as almost, which we've not talked about before much on the podcast. Yeah. So you mentioned looking for keys, which is one of these interesting things of how people find things. So if you've lost some, yeah, if you've lost something, what happens in your inner experience of finding the thing?
00:15:32
Speaker
I see images of where it could be, and I search those images for the keys. so um For example, yesterday I was looking for my laptop, and an image popped up in my head of the last place I'd seen it, which was exactly where it was, under on the couch, between the pillow and the couch, so you wouldn't have been able to see it otherwise if you if you didn't know it was there, with actually something covering it, somebody had just thrown something over it. But it was an image, and my I was thinking, where is my laptop? And then I think the process is, I think about what my laptop looks like. So I imagine my laptop and that is then something I scan for in my memory and then the image of where I last saw it pops up with the laptop in it.
00:16:13
Speaker
Did you jump through other places or does it just go straight yeah from the laptop to the correct place? Yesterday was direct, but I think often if I'm not sure, it'll I'll go through various places. yeah And it might go, oh, this place, no, it's not there, this place. It's exactly the same as if you'd walked around the house and looked at the place almost. but And I might be doing that at the same time, right? I might be walking around the house as well at the same time to those places. Or I might think, I think I last saw it there, i go there and it's not there because that image wasn't actually the last place I
Mental Imaging Techniques
00:16:42
Speaker
saw in that. It might be might have been you know the place before. Somebody moved it. But it's very much it's very much like where's Waldo? you know In my head, when I look at where's Waldo, I imagine the thing I'm looking for and then scan the picture for the thing I'm looking for. So i'm it's almost like i'm I've got another layer. I'm layering the reality with my imagination of what I'm looking for and trying to find where it matches. I think that's that's probably a good description
00:17:10
Speaker
It's kind of a wild question. Does, do you think doing, you doing Where's Waldo helps train people to find things? It depends if you look, I think in my experience, I can imagine that it would, like there, there's a game called set, I think. Have you heard of that one? Yeah. So I think that's the kind of thing where you, you're training yourself, the more you play it, the better you'll get, like for sure. Except if you really lack that ability. So, uh, someone quite close to me has aphantasia. So you can see kind of like some shadows if he imagines something. But for example, he doesn't dream in pictures at all. His dreams are, and he doesn't have any childhood memories. So there's quite a lot of advantageous stuff going on. He hates playing that game because he can't
00:17:53
Speaker
He just can't do it. He's incredibly slow and compared to anybody who has much more of a visual ability. So this is the one where there are lots of shapes with different colors and textures. And you have to find a set of three that all have the same color or all have different colors. Or all the same shape or all different shapes. Or all the same texture or different texture. Or a combination of those. Well, you have to have all of those. You have to have all the same shape and different colors and the same texture. I certainly find it quite hard to play it. I'm hyper-fantasic. Interesting. Yeah, so when you're playing that screen yourself, but I suspect that when it comes to neurodivergence, I think it's hilarious that we still say neurodivergence. Well, it kind of makes sense. There is probably, I don't even know if there is is a normal, there's probably like an average, right? You look at a Gaussian distribution and like this is normal, but that means actually the most of the people aren't actually on that exact point, point which we think is normal. So yeah.
00:18:46
Speaker
It depends where you are on that distribution and in so many dimensions. if if if you're If you can train yourself, and maybe you could even train yourself if you're at the very lower end, we don't know, we've never tried. It's very hard to say. I think that friend of mine, he would just find it very like, he just wouldn't see the points. He would just find it very like difficult and and kind of not not interesting. and I'm fairly confident it's possible for most people to train to get better. Have you been able to train and get better? I mentioned this before. ah Yeah, I did a ah a set of six lessons for an hour long each with someone called A. Fantasia Miao on the internet who is it like a coach who can coach. you And it did. I did get some more visual imagery. That's so interesting.
00:19:30
Speaker
in a very limited way, but yeah. And it was clear that doing it more would basically you use words to make the mind pay attention to visual details. So you like describe things in incredible visual detail but that you're actually looking at and then close your eyes and describe them again, but not being able to look at them. That's the kind, and there were lots of exercises of that nature. I think if I actually did it an hour a day for six months, I think I'd probably get quite good. But it's the same as, do I manage to do my piano practice? It's like, do you learn a language? You have to actually really have the motivation. And if you're an adult and you spent your whole life without an imagination, you don't quite have the motivation because you've adapted in other ways. Yeah, fascinating. So things come easier for some than others. It's like talent. When you want to be a classical musician, they typically say it's 99%
00:20:16
Speaker
and practice and 1% talent. If you have the 1%, the 99 will be much, much easier for you than the others will find it. But yeah though it's only 1%. Yeah. Yeah.
Visual Memory and Navigation
00:20:27
Speaker
Vin, do you look for keys the same way? No, I don't. I just remember where it is. and if i yeah but it's No imagery at all. I don't use imagery for that. I just try to like like trace retrace my steps. and But when you retrace your steps, do you see imagery? Not so much imagery as in like episodes in my mind. It's probably like in my bag. i don't
00:20:48
Speaker
imagine my bag I just like oh it's in there's like instructions where it's like oh it's in my bag go check in the bag so I don't when you say a bag I see a bag I can't not see it I don't see a bag I don't not not necessarily like the the but I think you're definitely much more visual than I am um you're definite you're definitely like slightly more like pro-fantasic than I am and whereas I think I'm making up for it by having more like auditory imagining. But yes, I don't necessarily automatically see a visual stimulus with the but concept that I'm like imagining. yeah bringing this se get Segueing into like this other concept I'm interested to ask you about is, have you heard of this thing called shape rotator? Like, shape rotating?
00:21:32
Speaker
I'm rotating a shape in my head right now. but okay yeah okay So basically it's what it says. Shape rotating is like popularized on Twitter but it's essentially this ability some people have and a lot of people don't have where you can like imagine a shape and just like manipulate it spatiotemporally. And I'm not sure how connected it is to like visual and profantasic ability, but I think they seem to be like very similar. um Considering that you're quite like above average when it comes to the visual manipulation, how do you think it fares with spatiotemporal object manipulation, basically shape rotating?
00:22:10
Speaker
how does it work how does it How does it compare? like how it's fair like Can you imagine a Rubik's Cube and then like you know solve it in your head? like Or if you're putting together some backpack furniture, can you like in your head imagine the piece was in its place and how everything connects to it and it be accurate? like Is it spatially accurate for a practical way? I'm very good at DIY, putting well especially putting together furniture. so yeah so I can imagine that it does. I can't really separate them, to be honest, what you were saying about shapeshifting and spatial awareness. To me, it's almost the same. Okay. here So you you do see things in your imagination a lot when you're doing something like DIY as to how the things fit together. and I look at instructions. I mean, I mostly build IKEA. I have to visualize it. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense to me. And actually, that's true for many things if they have a 3D component. Okay. Give you gives it another example, please.
00:23:06
Speaker
driving somewhere. so So directions. Okay. Okay. Yeah. If you tell me, you know, if somebody says drive straight to, you know, until you hit the the junction, I will see a junction. And that's how I remember that I have to drive to that junction. And then if you see a supermarket, like I will really, like it'll it'll always be picture related, I think, and left and right. They they have like, they're almost visual, like, I'll see an arrow left or an arrow right. It's very hard for me to imagine how people do that without. Okay. Can you imagine map? Does the map come automatically in your head whenever you are a beginner? Yeah. So not always. I think one of the things I used to struggle with is very interesting. If I drive the same way every day or like let's say every week for a year, which I've done before, I will recognize a lot of things on the way because I've
00:23:53
Speaker
even if I just did it once, I'll recognize many things. We're like, oh yeah, I've definitely seen this shop before. I've definitely seen this tree before. I've definitely seen this junction. and And so I know I'm on the right way and I'll be like, okay, well, this is this is the place where I need to turn left because I remember this picture. But if you asked me afterwards what what's sequence, like I don't know if I could always tell you. And actually I've experienced where I would go down the same way every week, and i wouldn't I would be like, I think the next thing is this, and it wouldn't be. It would be like two other things before that one. So it's it really weird, right? because it So if you're asking me, am I visualizing the map? Clearly not, because they're not necessarily in the same or in the correct order. Right. You're you're relying more on landmarks rather than like an internalized map. Yeah. OK. So that's interesting because like this is how I also navigate. And sometimes I'm it's really embarrassing because sometimes I will go to the nearest city and I know the place like very well because I've always been in the car with someone else driving. So I'll recognize the places of where we're going and where we end up
00:25:02
Speaker
getting at but when I start to drive by myself I always have trouble like figuring okay I'm here now I know where we are supposed to go but I don't know which road to take sometimes and I get and very confused very easily and it's like I know this place I've been here so many times I've just never had to like think about driving and the direction so the direction is linked with me in the picture the picture so actually but I think I am the one driving so But even when I wasn't driving, I could do the same. When I was a child, I remember the same. I would remember pick like like places that my parents would drive me through and I would know you have to turn left here or you have to turn. in So that's very interlinked.
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah. So it sounds like you've got a good map, like a sense of direction. It's like much better than... Yeah. Yeah, I do. I'm saying that slightly negatively because it ends up being me always. So you use both landmarks and an imagined version of the map then? Yeah. And I also really enjoy looking at a map because it's visual. Yeah. So looking at a map, I can... So if I cycle somewhere in London, I'll use City Mapper and I'll look at City Mapper when I leave the house and I remember... I will try to remember, okay, this junction looks like, like in my head, I'll see the junction. Okay, I have to turn right here. And then I have to turn left here. And I'll try to remember the sequence and ideally not have to look at my phone on the way. So when you say you'll see the junction, you're making up, well, you don't look at the street view picture of the junction. No, no. You just make up, find this angle, this is the shape of the road. No, no, if I know it, then I'll remember what it looks like. If I don't know it, I might actually go on street view. Oh, interesting. Okay. That's a lot of effort. But if I'm looking for a place
00:26:40
Speaker
like my end destination, I might go on Street View, look at what the building actually looks like, and then I will know that I'm in the right place. Yeah. and But you don't see the map in your mind, sorry, yourself. Can, yeah. So if I don't know, so sorry, yeah that was kind of what I was trying to say. If I look at City Mapper, I will remember kind of what the root looks like in my head, as in the map. And will it look exactly like City Mapper, like the typography and the colors, or is it your own version? Yes. Sorry, yes. It's not going to be exactly the same picture, but yes. Yeah. So if you looked at a different map, it would look different. You remember the actual map? It's green, because City Mapper is like directional. like tends to be the green line, right? So i that's what I'm seeing when I'm talking to you. You don't have like a permanent map that you bring up without looking at the map. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. So the variety of this is super interesting because some people do, they have a constantly like a map that's the ever map. And then some people haven't Yeah, the diversity of this is just astonishing. So even people with very good imaginations, I talked to somebody who had a really good imagination, but it had never occurred to them to use their imagination to navigate and they just always would get lost. And they neither remembered Landmarks nor a map. And it's like, what? Have you got a good imagination? Surely you remember the map. It's just so something else. play really Really interesting and diversity.
00:27:59
Speaker
Right, so while we're on on practical things, a common thing that I haven't heard enough conversation about is how people remember like names and faces, things like that. I'm terrible. With what? The names or the faces? Names. so but So I found a way that helps me, which is when I have to say the name several times when I meet the person. So if you introduce yourself, right, van Francis, I'll say, Oh, nice to meet you, Francis. I have to consciously say the name several times in our first conversation, and potentially the day after, and then maybe a month after or a week after. And that's the only way I'll remember your name. If I don't do that, names are not important. like They it's clearly don't stick in my memory, just the same as dates. I was awful at history because I couldn't remember
00:28:44
Speaker
names of people, you know dates of of of whatever happened, events, historical events, which is what what school used to test for. And I'm terrible at it. And I'll remember it for a short time only. So Frances, if we meet in a year, I might have no chance of remembering your name. But if we've spent an hour on a call, I will remember your face, but I have no idea where to put it. a So when you do remember a name, do you hear the audio of yourself saying it, or them saying it, or does it just arise as a word in your mind, or do you see the name? Yeah, I can guess with the letters. You see the letters? Yeah. I think that's also how I spell. When someone asks me how a word is spelled, I have to imagine it written, and then I'll read off the letters. And is it in a particular format, like font, or...? I don't know, probably different variants.
00:29:34
Speaker
son sarah Well, it's always the same font. I don't think so, necessarily, no. I think I have a default font. A default one, but it might be different for different people or... No, it's like the same font for... Yeah.
00:29:50
Speaker
And even if you even if you've never seen their name written down, and like you heard it, you remember it via the written version. i'll tell I'll ask them actually. I often ask, how do you spell that? and If I meet someone new and I don't know how to spell their name, I will ask them. And it's not because I'm saving their number on my phone, it's because I am... that is how I remember or actually can really understand what the name is. Yeah, I do that as well. But I don't i don't think it's an imagery I have of the word. I think it's the concept of the letters in the word under the word, which is a slightly different thing. um I bet there are people who just remember the audio, have to shram, yeah. Just seems so likely someone will do it by remembering the audio, right?
00:30:28
Speaker
So I tend to like rely more on the audio than like visualizing the the spelling. um And this is like how I typically remember like more foreign names because like the other day, for example, there's this guy called Yanger. And I was like, I'm not going to remember how to spell that. I'm just going to have to like remember it phonetically. And indeed, like it's spelled with an I. I was never going to. I think if you spelled it out, I would just like mess up the but pronunciation even more. So do you hear it in your mind's ear when you remember it? Yes, it's a lot easier to remember with my eye mind's ear. And do you hear it like as if like when they said it, when they were introducing themselves, or do you hear yourself saying it? I think if i was to like think it's probably the latter. It's probably like me remembering their name and then using my pronunciation of it. yeah okay Now that you've said that, I think there is a big phonetic component for me as well.
00:31:20
Speaker
but I have to read it first. So, or maybe I don't, it's so hard because you're asking me questions that I've never been asked before, right? And I've never asked myself before. It's the inner experience that just is, right? You never question it. yeah yeah So now that you've been talking about it, yeah, I think, and I'm quite good at pronouncing it correctly after I hear it. So there must be some sort of record, right? But it's not so conscious. as the pictures are, as the visual is. What I perceive this to be is we have a lot of overlap in our abilities, like you and me, Ronya, except that you tend to like rely more on the visual side, and I tend to rely more on the visual side. It's not like you can't do what I do. It's just that you kind of default to the visual. and It's not like I can't do your visual things. for so For example, when I'm wearing names, I could do that. I could like imagine the spelling, visualize it.
00:32:09
Speaker
but I attempt to like default on like the phonetic. and That's amazing. And it gives lots of roots to improve your ability of names and faces, right? You could pay attention to one or the other or have practice. Three rhymes as well, if I need to remember some. So I am Austrian, so I speak German, it's my mother tongue. And we call it a donkey's bridge. Like when you, I don't know why it's called a donkey's bridge. Maybe because I'm a donkey because I can't remember something and I need a bridge to bridge between lines. The thing I'm trying to remember, I need something else to to remember it. But yeah, so either a rhyme or something else, numbers, like I'll make up random stories with the number, with it with the individual numbers. And therefore I then suddenly remember the the number I would have otherwise never remember. It's like odd how our memory works. So does the rhyme make it easier to remember? You remember the rhyme more easily than the name almost? I forget the rhyme and I remember the name or the name or i forget the the briy and i remember the numbers. it's It's just, I think it's just a,
00:33:08
Speaker
If I had to try to explain it, I would say it's almost like stamping the memory in into my brain. And this is one of the techniques, but it's not that I necessarily remember the rhyme at all. or the It's like repeating someone's name. You're just repeating the numbers. Yeah. It's like it's not the same as memory experts who write a story and imagine the story. And the story's got things associated with numbers and they fully remember the numbers. It's very complicated. Yeah. It might be like that, but like in a more rudimentary. um Another like example that I can think of is like when someone, and this is a more comical version, but like when someone introduces themselves, they repeat their name by like doing it in a weird voice or like, Hi, my name is Alice. Hello, Alice. and it's
00:33:50
Speaker
This weird thing. Yeah, that would work totally. i likegra yeah And like you don't like when you remember the name you're not going out of this in your head all the time but like because you did it the first time it kind of like stamps it in your head and it just yeah somehow I will do this now forever and my friends will hate you Vinny. I think I learned this from like a a scary movie four or something, one of those like, yeah,
Emotional Impact of Media
00:34:12
Speaker
parodies. isn good So Ronny, do you have any visualization of time, like whether today or the week or your life or history, one that you use? I am not sure what you mean by that, actually. So when you're thinking about when things happen, do you see any imagery associated with that or not?
00:34:34
Speaker
I don't think I see visualizations of time specifically, but it will be of what I need to do. So if I need to go pick up my son from nursery, I will imagine the nursery or I'll imagine the place that I haven't seen him. But I won't think of, that's not time. If you've got to pick them up on the nursery on Thursday, you won't have like a picture of the week with like the days on it and then the them in Thursday. Or, let's have an example. That's really interesting. Yeah, i um I'm becoming a little bit more aware, but it's very complicated. I don't know if it's always that way. When you say Thursday, I was seeing the word Thursday spelled out. Thursday also has a specific feeling to me. And I think there was a feeling associated with Thursday. So like it's it's very like... Multimodal. Multimodal, yeah, definitely.
00:35:20
Speaker
Sorry, by a feeling you mean because it's like the one before last day of the week, like the emotional feeling of Thursday. but Also how the word feels. The consonants. The concept of Thursday. The concept, yeah, it's a whole ju jumble of all sorts of things, actually. I don't think it's necessarily, I couldn't, and and when you then pick on one, it becomes not as real, not as right, because there's so many other things that are, that have to happen at the same time. So it's February now, if you're thinking about the whole year or next year or last year, is there any like visual or spatial, so if you're thinking I'm what I'm going to do in the summer, this is happening in early summer in the autumn, this might happen.
00:35:58
Speaker
So summer, I would immediately imagine the place we always go to for holidays on a lake in Austria. So I will have a visual image of that probably. And the image has like a sun attached to it and a temperature attached to it and a feeling that you get when you're there. So if someone says, I don't know, how many months is it until July? Oh, I have to come. And you don't get a sense anyway, even if you don't know the exact number, you don't go, oh, it's like this kind of amount, some visual way or yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a gap. Like, I know there's a gap. to If you ask me when's March, I would be like, yes, it's right. It's an immediate.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah so yeah so I'm asking because yeah some people do have very strong visual and would immediately give a very complicated answer. Yeah I personally definitely have the year in a circle and I'm aware like where in the circle I am like the winter's at the bottom and the summer's at the top. I think for me it's more it's not a circle it's definitely like a like a straight line. A line. Yeah it's more of a calendar year. It's like left to right. Yeah. Or forward. Away from you. I think that's a platform going away from you. Yeah, yeah. Hence there's a gap. It's over there. Interesting. Does it loop round? So there'll be like next summer and that'll be really far away. And I think that it used to be September to July because that was a school year. Yeah. That was very strongly
00:37:26
Speaker
I mean, that was a year, right? And now I've shifted because I've no longer, like, haven't been in school for a long time. And that's January to January. Yeah, it's for the end of year exams. I think something is coming in the tax year or something, I don't know. Yeah, the end of year exams looming in the distance at this point. Anyway, okay, yeah. Just to add to that, like, I think, now that you guys mentioned that yours is a circle and yours is like a straight line, mine's like 12 boxes. In a three by four grid. Is it a 3x4 grid? Yeah, I guess so. It's like so how's he gay like january for bam it's more like a 2x5 grid and then like two extra ah leftover like boxes for December and November or something. So you've got like January, then February, then on the next row, March, April?
00:38:08
Speaker
or and little i does like come I guess I just look at like Google Maps and like Google, when I zoom out, because like you have like various ways to select format it, right? Google Maps has like the zoomed out version. and google calendar so yeah google google calendar google calendars sort of man And like when you had the the year view, you yeah have like 12 boxes. That's like the 12 months. Yeah, that's how I imagined it. So interesting. I think that's totally, we get influenced so much by the things around us. And visuals are so connected, right, with what we use. I used to dream. If I use if i was it was working in Excel for too much too long, I would dream in Excel. Like it was legit.
00:38:49
Speaker
legit I learned to read read the time with an analog clock on the wall of you know in the 1970s at my parents house and um yeah I definitely think I associate times of day with the positions of the clock of the hour hand more than if I'd learnt time from a digital clock first. Yeah, I'm gonna say, well, last topic and then a closing topic. Like, fit well, emotion and memory. You talked about horror movies, which seems like a fun entry point. um
00:39:21
Speaker
so So... I've immediately got a reaction. What were you feeling then? ah Uh, I'm the wrong person to talk to about horror movies, but actually that's probably not true. I'm just one person, right? Um, with a certain experience. I cannot watch them. I think things for me are, they're too real. Everything's real. If I read a book, I'm in the book and everything that's happening in the book is real and movies are worse because I can't, I can't, you know how children, they'll see they'll they'll understand what they can understand at the time. So if you introduce them to a topic that's maybe not quite age appropriate, if it's not visual, they'll probably just understand and take in what they can where theyre with with where they're at. And for me, I'm now an adult, so I probably have the ability to to take it all in, and it all becomes absolutely real immediately. And horror movies, I'm in the horror movies. So while other people are laughing and thinking about how badly it was
00:40:16
Speaker
I don't know, done. It doesn't matter at all. It's just real. And so it's absolutely terrifying. um And I just can't. There's just no points. I'm also a little bit too sensitive. And that's not just for horror movies. Things can be too funny, too silly, too, too thrilling. Sorry? Too cringe. Oh yeah, too cringe. Absolutely. Too scary. So what's what's happening in, this is pretty easiest to ask about with the book. When you're reading a book do you get any other modal modes of thought like imagery or audio? or All of it. So can you describe what it feels like? like What's it like? Well i'm I'm there. So when you're reading Harry Potter. Yeah. So who's perspective, like who would you be? So Harry Potter's doing something in Hogwarts. Would you be Harry Potter or would you be like a camera in the air looking at him? Or would you, what would happen? and How high, how the quality is it?
00:41:06
Speaker
Well, I, I, it depends on the narrative, right? So if it's a book, I think I'm probably where the narrator is. So if it's an I form, I'll probably be the person oh versus if it's narrated from, from third perspective, I'll probably also be there. And I will, I remember at some point I read this, this, it was a kid's book in reality, but it was very like someone in the book betrayed their best friend. And I remember being feeling so guilty and I was not a child anymore. I felt so guilty and i I met a friend and I was like, I feel so guilty. like i'm I feel like I've done something to you, but I i know i like i know it's just because I read this book. it's not And that's because it was written in the first person, whereas if it had been written in the third person, you would have felt less guilty?
00:41:51
Speaker
No, I don't think it was written in the person, actually. So i can I can impose myself into it. Like, I kind of can imagine how other people feel. So I don't know if it's, it's probably not how would they feel exactly. But I have my own interpretation of how they feel. And that is how I will feel. Yeah. So that's a very strong emotional imagination. Huge. Yeah. It's it's it's it's slightly I would say it's almost, it it can be really helpful, but it's quite limiting. It makes your emotions sticky because once you're no longer exposed to the movie, the book, the stimulus, whatever, you still keep that emotion when you're interacting with other people in your daily life. And so you're still stuck in the guilt, even though you're no longer reading the book about the shame, or that you're still feeling scared, even though you're no longer watching the movie and being scared.
00:42:40
Speaker
And I know the thing in the movie happened in the movie and isn't happening in reality, but it doesn't matter because it's kind of kind of shifted in the real world. You're still immersed in that situation. It can can last a long time, especially with horror movies. How long? you um asking It might happen that years later, I'll i'll think about it. oh wow her that but i have to I keep using the word untangle, but I have to consciously go and and I know I need time like to separate my life and reality out from what I've just experienced. Okay. Wow. Okay. So that must mean that you must find it very difficult or overwhelming. Watch like distressing videos on Instagram or Twitter. or like Yeah, I won't. You won't. Okay. I get it. Yeah. I also don't read the news. um At some point I decided there was no point because the news nowadays is all is like every day reading things that really has no impact on your life and you can't impact it either. I mean, there's a,
00:43:34
Speaker
I'll read things like weekly journals, you know, where it's kind of at a different level, not the daily kind of giving you highs and lows thing, because it would impact me too much. And and it would just it would just not be helpful in any way at all. When you're seeing a film, there's already imagery and sound, do you kind of augment them or do you just use whatever there is? And it's just like, yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of, and that's why I find it more difficult at reading books because it's imposed. It's someone else's imagery and ah audio and it's like audio in movies is so powerful.
00:44:10
Speaker
in creating emotions. That's why they use it, right? It's so, so powerful. I am completely defenseless. Oh, so you don't like the movies because it's too powerful, not because... because' Right. Okay. and And is it harder work reading a book because you have to do more work to create the imagery or it's fine. It just appears as good quality as a movie. If it's a good book, yeah. Or if it's if it's if it draws you in. Yeah. And even though you're doing, deciding where the camera is and filling in details happens, right? It's not yeah but your brain's doing it. Right. And that's also one of the reasons why I can't, like I'm.
00:44:44
Speaker
I'm quite lazy, I'd say, in certain respects. like i I don't really need to read non-fiction because it doesn't do. like It doesn't come out of... like That is a lot of work. Reading non-fiction is a lot of work for me. Because there isn't any imagery and there isn't any story. Well, sometimes there is, not always. I can't read an autobiography because that that's a story. But if it's not a story, then it has a lot less... I really have to think about the concept to understand or the concepts of the things that are being talked about. in order to create a feeling or create a memory or create anything, versus if it's a fictional book or a story, it's automatic. It just kind of like, I just like, grips you yeah there it is. It just grips you. Whereas like, yeah yeah, nonfiction, you don't have a, you don't need to like, yeah. Yeah. It was one of the things that shocked me when I discovered, uh, when I realized I was a fantastic and I was like,
00:45:34
Speaker
Hang on, why do we even have movies? Because if people conceal these imagery when they're just reading, it just is it even necessary? I mean, it's someone else's interpretation, right, can be really interesting, and exciting, and I haven't seen everything in my life, right? So it's still, it's still... serves a huge purpose, right? And it also gives you material you can then use to mention later with in other sections. Oh, for sure. i'm from the tri up yeah Great. And then if you read a book and then you watch a movie after, it can be really weird because you have your own imagery, right? You have your own feelings and then somebody else's feelings are there.
00:46:10
Speaker
being presented to you, a different interpretation of what you've read. Yeah. Okay, let's wrap it up. Yeah. I want to ask you as a final question, if you can imagine an apple. Yeah. Can you describe your apple?
The Power of Visual Imagination
00:46:22
Speaker
It's a round, it's a green and red, like kind of converging. It's about some normal apple size, not a small one, just a normal one. It's got a pip, sorry, what's a pip is inside. I'm really bad at explaining, like, I lack the language, I think here. I don't normally describe apples. What does it think? The stem. It has a stem that's brown. It's a bit shiny. Sitting on a plate ah by a window in the sun, partially in the sun, not fully. It's a bit waxy. Like the outside is a bit shiny.
00:46:53
Speaker
It's a bit boring because it's just standing there and I was never a fan of still still art. And it immediately appeared with the place and the window as well. assume No, the plate wasn't there. that And it also felt a little unnatural to say because I imposed that when I was thinking about where it was. But it was definitely in like in the kitchen and there was definitely a window behind it and there was definitely light. But it was in a non-specified place to start with. if it was just I was imagining my own kitchen. Right. Oh, okay. So you were more remembering your kitchen with an apple in it. You could say that, yeah. You could put it anywhere else though, couldn't you? I can put it anywhere. It's on your head now. Yeah. A little on us sort of situation going on here. Yeah. ah so pretty That's a reasonably good quality apple, I think. It's quite big though in comparison to your head. I don't think it's actually like correct dimensions imposed on your head. Cool. And with that, you have just imagined an apple. Thank you so much. This was great fun.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah. I hope you you put together some amazing episodes. I'm going to definitely listen to them. This is a good episode. I like this. So interesting. I think it's more interesting to think about it yourself, to be prompted to think about these things because you never do. And like, oh, wow, I just took this for granted. And other people don't have this kind of imagination. Exactly.
00:48:15
Speaker
. .