On episode five of Did You Fear About This One?

Ami walks us through the science behind mental visualization, going over the differences between hyperphantasia and aphantasia. She also touches on synesthesia, number forms, and sleep paralysis.

Note: our mics only recorded half of the audio for the episode, so we had to rely on the phone microphone for sound here. Also, this was recorded at the end of a workday and after talking for two hours straight our brains began to turn off before our mouths did.

Corrections!

Shakespeare didn’t write Emma, it was Jane Austen

10 Things I Hate About You wasn’t based on Othello, it was based on The Taming of the Shrew

Save The Cat! Was written by Blake Snyder, not Zack Snyder

Take the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire we discussed in the episode then leave your results and thoughts in the comments below:

https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/

Cool places we mentioned:

— @ whitewomencomedy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whitewomencomedy/

— The Crest Theater in Sacramento, California: https://crestsacramento.com/

— Terror Trader in Chandler, AZ: https://terrortrader.com/

— Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix, AZ: https://www.changinghands.com/

— We Bleed Ink tattoo studio in New Orleans, LA (in the Garden District). We worked with the artist Vega: https://www.webleedink.com/

— Juan’s Flying Burrito in New Orleans, LA (in the Garden District): https://juansflyingburrito.com/

— Feng Cha Boba Milk Tea in New Orleans, LA (in the Garden District): https://www.fengchausa.com/order

— Boutique du Vampyre’s Apothecary in New Orleans, LA (in the French Quarter): https://vampireapothecary.com/

Research credits:

— What is Aphantasia? https://aphantasia.com/what-is-aphantasia/

— Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia: What We Know After a Decade of Research https://aphantasia.com/article/science/aphantasia-and-hyperphantasia/

— History of Fantasia https://aphantasia.com/article/science/history-of-aphantasia/

— Hyperphantasia https://aphantasia.com/topic/hyperphantasia/

— Lives without imagery - Congenital aphantasia https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945215001781

— Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-it-real-or-imagined-how-your-brain-tells-the-difference-20230524/

— A Systematic Review of Aphantasia: Concept, Measurement, Neural Basis, and Theory Development https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11437436/

— The Visions of Sane Persons by Sir Francis Galton 1881 https://galton.org/essays/1880-1889/galton-1881-fort-rev-visions-sane-persons.pdf

— Subjective signal strength distinguishes reality from imagination https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37322-1

— Mapping the path from smell to perception https://www.cshl.edu/mapping-the-path-from-smell-to-perception/

— Space perception https://www.britannica.com/science/space-perception/Visual-factors-in-space-perception

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