Neurodiversity and iNaturalist!

Yeah, I kind of remember watching something about it in a YouTube video about “Inner Monologue”…

In fact I don’t know if I fully understand author, I both say everything in my mind and imagine a “heartbreak” or “dog” picture as sure different parts of memory are connected with the word. I don’t see it as opposite variations.

They’re not opposites. It’s just that some people never experience one or the other. The author doesn’t hear the words that you hear. Other people aren’t able to visualize (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-minds-eye-is-blind1/). It’s just another example of neurodiversity - that we don’t all have the same inner experience.

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I think I’m probably somewhere towards aphasia, as the memories I hold are about shape and position, rather than colour or surface texture. I do mostly think in words. It is interesting to read that a study has found a difference in processing methods.

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I remember how surprised I was when I first encountered the question, “Do you dream in color?” I had assumed that everybody did (except color blind people, of course).

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and I dream in words, pictures in my dreams wake me up I saw that

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I happen to dream in color! I’ve asked some of the voices in my head, and, somehow, some of them don’t, or…something like that, thoughtforms can’t exactly dream the way people with bodies do, but hopefully you get the idea.

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Do you think colourblind people don’t see colours in dreams? Surely, colour is learned by experience, but I don’t know what brain is capable of. Never thought about it.
I always see it as regular experience or a fairytale told to be, today it was both, me and my grandma checking a village (that was a compilation of different places) slowly transgressing to a tale of me being in castle and many-eyed dragon being a cursed man trying to kill me and other people, as it was said to me two of his children went to the park we went to in my dream (and yes, they were like 500 years ago and at the same time after us), a girl was first and bridge underneath her feet blew up and she fell in icy pond, revealing an old “witch” in ice, she stand up and told them both that they’re her children, what she meant is that in a battle with knights many years ago she cursed their father to become a dragon, his son also was meant to become a dragon.
I can’t imagine having that all in words or without colour, it would loose all the drama! Plus I know it’s told we’re fooled by dreams cause parts of brain are activated in the same way as if it was in real life, brain sees no difference at all, and words are not a full life experience, so I’m confused.
Hard to capture, but eyes like this (4% on iPad, so will update it).

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Oh! switching? yes, we’ve discussed that, they say they don’t wish to, even if they were the “level” of thoughtform that could. We do consider myself different than the body, which is typing this, reading comments, eating, drinking, and doing everyday things, sort of as if we were all just in a shell of some sort, so Clay is different than me, and I am different than the body at some points, I’m just always “In front”, that we refer to the body as “Grace”.

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Not exactly the same question, but it reminds me of this bit from the Wikipedia article on synesthesia: Neuroscientist and author V.S. Ramachandran studied the case of a grapheme–color synesthete who was also color blind. While he couldn’t see certain colors with his eyes, he could still “see” those colors when looking at certain letters. Because he didn’t have a name for those colors, he called them “Martian colors.”

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I guess another topic I’d like to bring up on here is Maladaptive Daydreaming.

I happen to do it quite often, still wondering if it could be linked to any mental disorder.

I think its mostly my brain wanting an escape from my (sometimes) painful reality, and I’ve created a world within my head which I can feel safe in, I’ve just only recently learned it’s not “normal”!

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I’d say “normal” is a very subjective term and not to just believe what others say. If your daydreaming is helping you get through your reality, then it isn’t maladaptive - it is a perfectly valid response to getting you through your day/this period of your life. Envisioning how you want your life to be will help you create it/recognize it later when you have the opportunity. It’s a way of understanding and acknowledging that you want something different than what you currently have (and may or may not have the power to change right now).

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I definantly (sorry for mispelling, I don’t have the energy to change it) am not using the term maladaptive as saying “Oh yeah I totally have it”, I usually use the term “immersive daydreaming”, which pretty much explains itself
I happen to have a lot of friends who constantly try to diagnose me with every. single. mental. disorder. on. this. planet!!! And this was the most recent one that was thrown at me. (friend: “Oi! you zoned out last week, remember? you said…what was his name…CLAY! yeah! you said he was talking to you? you TOTALLY have this disorder!”) (You should’ve heard when they tried to tell me I had DID…)
so, unless I find the need to get diagnosed with anything, I’ll be in my Mind Palace if anyone needs me :sparkles:

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Well, if you were talking to Clay, then you wouldn’t be paying attention to your friend. Any more than someone playing with their cell phone is paying attention to their environment.

Updated dragon, still far from being done, but wanted to ask about another thing. Once when I was a child one of my relatives said it’s possible to count car numbers, since then counting edges or numbers is kind of a mania for me. I read as long as it’s not a discomfort for you it’s ok, but I can’t really say if it’s ok that every time I see a word on a billboard I have to count edges of its letters and prove how close they’re to 10 (if they’re resulting in e.g. 8 it means you x2 = 16 = 7 x2 = 14 = 5 x2 = 10 = 0). And if it’s a word on something near me I’ll count it twenty times in a row, even if I remember what it was and have no aim in that. Other thing is getting toes or fingers up when on escalator or in a car you pass a light pole or car/people, depending on what you decided today and what is not too numerous, but it’s an easy task, knowing how many edges in car numbers’ font or other fonts, like 5 in cars is 8 and usually it’s 9, that’s kind of weird. Also counting edges in windows and often in more than 2 dimensions, it takes a lot of time and I don’t know in fact how normal it is, asked my husband and he doesn’t do that, so wanted to know how often do people do stuff like that?

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I don’t - but I have just read a novel translated from French - where one character counts

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Don’t have much to say with what you just said, but God, I love the dragon! you can really feel its power coming from the image!

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Thank you a lot! I’m now trying to find motivation to finish it, I won’t say no to hyper focusing, lack that in me and most of what I do ends up unfinished.

I read the book “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop: OCD & The True Story of A Life Lost In Thought” By David Adam. It talks briefly about Maladaptive Daydreaming being an OCD Spectrum Disorder though not a well known/recognized one. I wonder sometimes if that’s why I had so much insomnia as a kid, as I was too busy making up stories and tweaking the details to actually sleep.

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Speaking as an older adult, I did much intensive storytelling (with reiterations) to myself, mostly as a child and young adult. Often at night, but not always. I miss it. But occasionally, the talent returns for a time; and I find it satisfying. Maybe it was maladaptive, maybe not.

I imagine i may have missed education development skills and some social skill development, but there’s no proof of that. Missing sleep? Dunno, I think if your mind and body need sleep, you will sleep. If not, let yourself sleep by saying, ‘I will easily pick this back up later’.

On the whole, I think a storytelling skill is worthwhile, even for an audience of one.

Still, looking back on my life, I suggest… do your school work first. it makes the rest ~easier~ to get thru. Way less stress and, um, distress.

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