{"id":6662,"date":"2015-08-28T22:50:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T21:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/?p=6662"},"modified":"2015-08-28T22:51:24","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T21:51:24","slug":"blindnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/2015\/08\/28\/blindnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Blindnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh look, there’s a name for this oddity I have.<\/a><\/p>\n

In all kinds of books throughout the years I’ve read of people picturing things in their mind. I’ve never really been able to do that. I can know exactly what something looks like, and I can see the “idea” of it, but not actually picture the thing itself. Now I have a word for it: aphantasia.<\/p>\n

Like counting sheep. If I ever tried to do it, it would require intense concentration and definitely would not help me go to sleep! I can build up a broad picture of a landscape with sheep in it, in a sort of impressionist style, but not treat them as individual sheep, see them up close or make them move.<\/p>\n

With landscapes I can at least get some kind of vague picture. It’s especially impossible with people and faces. It can actually be easier for me to picture a photo of a person than the person him- or herself, probably because I have a dash of prosopagnosia or face blindness. I have a hard time recognizing people whom I sort of know but not very well. Like Ingrid’s classmates’ parents, or even some of our neighbours whom I don’t see so often. Hopeless! It’s OK if I see them at school or in our neighbourhood, but whenever I run into them in an unrelated setting – on the train, dressed for work – it can easily happen that I know that I know them, but I don’t have a clue who they actually are.<\/p>\n

Or celebrities! I hear people say, “I saw so-and-so in the restaurant today”. And they recognize movie stars whom they have seen in other movies. To me this is a near impossible feat. I could only recognize someone if I’ve seen the face literally hundreds of times, ideally over many years. So I am pretty sure that I would recognize the king of Sweden, or Tom Cruise. But no current Swedish government minister for example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh look, there’s a name for this oddity I have. In all kinds of books throughout the years I’ve read of people picturing things in their mind. I’ve never really been able to do that. I can know exactly what something looks like, and I can see the “idea” of it, but not actually picture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observing_the_self"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6662"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6664,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions\/6664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}