tag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-28:918036Lost in LualandLuaLua2021-08-06T20:59:56Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-28:918036:324665harm to children2021-08-06T20:59:56Z2021-08-06T20:59:56Zpublic8Related to some observations from the last spate of book posts: wow, uh, the way we treated kids as recently as a century ago seems <i>incredibly</i> fucked?<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://queenlua.dreamwidth.org/324665.html#cutid1">Read more...</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=queenlua&ditemid=324665" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-28:918036:157491aphantasia2016-07-22T17:52:25Z2016-07-22T17:55:07Zpublic7Some number of years ago I stumbled on this blog post, <a href="http://dfan.org/visual.html">"I don't see anything when I close my eyes"</a>.<br /><br />The author says that he can't mentally "see" objects in his mind—for instance, if asked to imagine a red square, while he knows intellectually what it looks like, he can't really imagine/see it unless it's in front of him.<br /><br />I found this fascinating to stumble upon, because I thought this was how <i>everyone</i> was. When people talked about seeing a picture in their mind, I thought it was just kind of a figure of speech, but this dude's post + various anecdata indicates most people actually do this, and I'm the weird one for not being able to picture things!<br /><br />Anyway, this week I found a couple cool articles on this topic! Turns out <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/science/aphantasia-minds-eye-blind.html?_r=0">researchers are starting to look into this</a>, which I find exciting, because it seemed like such a tricky and quirky thing to study that we'd never get actual scientists on it, and yet here we are. Also it has a name now: "aphantasia."<br /><br />Also, another person reports he's also <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to-be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/">unable to mentally "hear" music</a>, which is fascinating to me. I can hear music in my mind, quite vividly, and have composed whole songs that way; it feels <i>weird</i> that not everyone can do this.<br /><br />Other tidbits:<br /><br />* I'm really curious if there are any good artists with visual aphantasia. I actually liked art a lot as a kid and drew lots up through middle school, but I wasn't excellent at it. I imagine with more training/effort I could've become good, but I wonder if I'd eventually hit difficulties once I got to Serious Business stuff? Like, I can imagine composing music without being able to hear music in the mind, but it'd be a huge pain in the ass, you'd be pretty reliant on synthesizer-like tools to experiment with sounds, and I imagine not having the ability to turn over different approaches in your mind would make iterations/improvements harder. But maybe not!<br /><br />* Amusingly, I think this explains why I found it so impossible to find an approach for meditation that worked for me. A bunch of meditation guides have stuff like "start by imagining a white dot in your mind," and I think that was supposed to be the <i>easy</i> part, but I would get stuck there, trying and trying to conjure up a thing in my mind that just was not happening. Once I read a guide on walking meditation it all made much more sense.<br /><br />Also if anyone else shares this experience let me know, because I'm super curious, join the aphantasia club etc etc<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=queenlua&ditemid=157491" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-28:918036:119366omfg2015-08-20T07:58:03Z2015-08-20T07:58:03Zpublic1okay i just got home from work + vidya games with a friend and OH GOD I HAVE SO MUCH CODE TO WRITE TOMORROW and thus i have no time to actually read/comment/catch up but<br /><br />my reading page is full of posts with like 15+ comments rn and this makes me so happy <3<br /><br />please continue being your amazing selves, that is all<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=queenlua&ditemid=119366" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2011-06-28:918036:97870GUYS2014-09-11T00:27:16Z2014-09-11T00:27:16Zpublic3<a href="http://www.kdramastars.com/articles/36518/20140910/assassins-creed-movie-update.htm">Robert Downey Jr. rumored to play Leonardo Da Vinci in Assassin's Creed movie</a><br /><br />!!!!<br /><br />ALSO MICHAEL FASSBENDER IS STARRING TOO???<br /><br />this is already sailing well above my Minimum Hot Dude Quota<br /><br />also I didn't even know they were making an AC movie homg<br /><br />someone please cry and fangirl with me<br /><br />(i'm 80% certain the movie will be dumb as hell, because let's get real the source material is not exactly Shakespeare, but it can be <i>stylish</i> and <i>fun</i> and that's all I really need)<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=queenlua&ditemid=97870" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments