This is the bit I was responding to (should have quoted it in my reply!). Is it part of aphantasia? I suppose I could go read the Wiki pageā¦
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I think that it is different from Aphantasia, and lots of people have different monologues. I know there are people who have no inner dialogue.
I think a lot of mine is narrating the scene or converting pictures into the way my mind will memorize
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I doubt this is related to aphantasia. Itās just another invisible thing that some people (maybe many people, who knows) have going on that influences how they interact with the world
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This relates to the song Hi Ren, that Justin also mentioned yesterday, which he recorded in a one take video. Definitely worth a watch if you havenāt seen it.
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Mine is less useful. Itās like a having a really cynical person in my ear, giving their opinion on everything. It was really apparent when I started doing a lot of yoga because the teachers would often talk about concepts that werenāt really in line with how I previously viewed the world and the chatter would be telling me that I didnāt believe what they were saying, it was all made up nonsense etc. The chatter hasnāt gone away but Iāve learned to ignore it. Iām more receptive to alternative views these days, to at least hear them out, without judgement which is a big improvement
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This is a tremendously interesting topic!! Iām very visual (science/medicine career now, but wanted to be an artist when I was a little tot), and have a much easier time picking up a new chord by watching Justinās fingers than I do hearing (or even reading) X finger X fret - the hearing-to-action pathway is so much slower than visual-to-action, and also way less durable in my memory.
Defintely donāt read the books I do 
I love a book with good/pretty visuals!
This is also super interesting to me! Iāve dabbled in a little bit of meditation, and also worked with a therapist, and whenever it came to what my inner narrative was saying, I got kind of stumped - like Iām sure Iām making judgements and having thoughts throughout my day, but thereās not really a voice or narrativeā¦which made talk therapy very challenging and not as helpful as Iād hoped 
Things are happening in my mind, of course, but itās visual or intuitive, not so much a narrative unless Iām planning something out stepwise of things I need to do. Even naming sensations isnāt straightforward for subtleties.
The brain and nervous system are so fascinating! I just wish we knew more WHY and HOW these thing happen - thatās the reason I swung toward physiology rather than a psychology major in college, it was deeply unsatisfying to read about studies of college kids and the trends they found without getting the why/how since we just donāt know yet!
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I donāt have much time this morning, so letās quicklyā¦
Nicole @JokuMuu , if there arenāt a few conversations/thoughts going through my head most at the same time or at least exchange conversations on and on , thereās always some music going through my headā¦and I also make my own in my headā¦ itās never quiet anyway (Thatās the main reason I started learning guitar with theoryā¦then I can think about it and fall asleep hours earlier)ā¦
And Phil @philsmith , how funny that you say thatā¦ I was still looking not so long ago I looked at a few photos of 2 specific places in Italy from a long time ago and I could smell what I often smelled there (also has to do with the brain parts of smell and memory that lie together (the way they lie) )ā¦
@mattswain My eye fell on your post and I am happy to read that you were able to turn the negative around. 
ā¦ I also succeeded and only learned to play music about 4 years ago.
I donāt have time to read everything, but I wish everyone a nice guitar day ā¦ practice it in your hand or in your head with the guitar of your dreams ā¦ or else just google Thomann ā¦just because 
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@philsmith You definitly raised an eye opening topic yesterday! When I was writing my first comment, I was still thinking, that my āwayā of āimaginationā is the way most people think. Ok, maybe some would have better or less abilty to imagine or to create inner pictures of objects/persons/situations. I wasnāt aware of this till yesterday, that they literally āseeā pictures 
.
That provided some impuls to reflect this awareness. I then had a conversation with my husband in the evening and asked him how things are for him and I was shocked about the fact heās definitly on the other sideā¦Inter alia, he has a degree in sport science and asked me how I think all the mental work with athlets and visualization would be done? BANG!!
I donāt see myself primarly as disadvantaged, just different, I CAN imagine objects/people/situations in detail, just without pictures. On the other hand, other senses are much more present (hearing melodies in my head, hearing voices of persons I know or knew 1:1, smelling odours in my mind, combining music, feelings, odours to situations, picking up every little sentiment between the lines, being empathic, feeling otherās sorrows,ā¦)
I read a few articles yesterday evening and one reason for aphantasia might be a communication āproblemā with different areas of the brain (frontal lobe ā occipital lobe). Another potential reason might be a over active occipital lobe.
I wanted to pick up a few statements as they seem to be very familiar to me:
I very often have the impression, that my brain never stops āthinkingā, the fact of thinking ānothingā is completely strange for me, a phenomenon of āloud thoughtsā, even when I rest or go to bed. Do you have similar experiences? Would be interesting to know, if others process thoughts in a different way ā imagination, visualisation and therefore have a channel to āoutsourceā parts of their thinking?
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Itās never quietā¦ on the beach everyone was reading around meā¦people say "why do you not read "ā¦ but I need all this time (and more) to go through in my head everything that has happened and will happen and moreā¦ I stare into the distance and people think Iām restingā¦ but I never restā¦ since I started learning at Justinguitar I think about playing the guitar and music theory and because it is so complicated sometimes (I have been looking for the difficult thing since the beginning, which makes me learn less quickly than if I did it differently) I can find some peaceā¦It was often a heavy load that is now usually muted ( the annoying thoughts) ā¦ but when I visit many people and engage in discussions I can spend days with it in many forms ā¦
but now we are talking about something completely different from the actual subjectā¦ 
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Hahaha. Actually, this makes me curious about aphantasiacs and memory. For those with this condition, do you have visual memories? Can you see yourself on that camping trip with your dad when you were 12 years old? Or perhaps you have a non-visual memory of it? Fascinating subject.
Yes Iād say my brain always needs to be busy. Itās definitely chatter rather than pictures that occupy it. Itās either churning over events that have happened or thinking about what is next. It can be a challenge when I lie down at night. Itās where Iāve found guitar and yoga helpful (not at the same time 
) because they both require my undivided attention. Similarly, in summer, riding my motorbike is the same. On a night Iāll either get into bed and read until Iām sleepy (usually doesnāt take long) or Iāll listen to a meditation aimed towards sleep to slow down the thoughts
I donāt think so, or maybe I wasnāt precise enough. To come back to guitar related issues, I was interested in the aspect of maybe a different kind of " brain-processing". When I learn something on guitar, e.g. like a riff or a scale or a certain sequence of tones, I realized problems to visualize this on the fretboard and to save that picture in my brain for further use, will say, I think it over and over and over again, because I canāt put it aside as a āsaved pictureā and reactivate it when needed, just to free up space for other items. When there is a part I struggle with, I canāt visualize this without my guitar as a mental picture very well, but with ātellingā me, what should be played or where exactely to put fingers, I get along. I asked myself, if others, who are able to āsaveā knowledge as a picture (broadly speaking), at least partially, are learning faster or more effective, because they are able to shift this into another brain area. As I have the same happening in other parts of life too, maybe that keeps the brain always busy. I find that interesting, because the learning technique maybe could be better adjusted. Would be also interesting to know, if those who speed really successfully through the courses, like @jkahn (sorry JK ) are more capable in terms of visualisation or imagination.
I should add, that I didnāt miss that capability so far, as I wasnāt aware of it, would just be interestingā¦
Iāve always thought that you should feel the music and the body reacts on its own , i teach my body not my brain ā¦ the moment the brain starts to think it all becomes harder
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I meant the black hole that I see and my always busy headā¦but if I understand correctly you think that this may be related to you (and others) and after another read I get itā¦yes it will be part of the rushā¦I donāt really feel I can going into this in depth to continue because I have already entered into that process and it takes a lot of energyā¦ asking specific questions is always possible/must/must be doneā¦but my busy head has another causeā¦ a bit brutal as what you say and sounds quite logical, causing extra heavy traffic
In short, learning the keyboardt -riffs -licks-solos without a guitar in hand took a lot of effort and for example I start at fret 5 and call it also 5 and then I go to the next one where I know for example that at the 12th fret on the 3rd string the G note is waitingā¦ but actually I think most about the distances between the notesā¦ it doesnāt matter to me at all which clef I play something inā¦
Iām posting this now and Iāll probably think about it some moreā¦I donāt have a choice in that either
so you think Iām bad 
If you donāt see images when you close your eyes, you will not learn more slowly with most thingsā¦ especially once you know this at a young age and it is taken into accountā¦ otherwise a number of things will be a bit difficult and you will completely understand not what the teacher (or parents) mean with some things.
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Iāve been using visualisation as an aide to learning for a few months and Iām sure it speeds up my learning. I seem to be able to memorise a piece of music quicker now. That said, I still need plenty of practice to polish up the playing of it.
Thatās pretty useless information for those of you who canāt visualise. In which case, I think you have to forget about it and find other ways which work for you.
This thread shows that we are all different and so need different ways of learning.
Thereās nothing wrong with exploring different ways. Some you will have to discard and others you can develop.
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Yes and no, Iād say. Itās true that the conversation has moved on from aphantasia somewhat but the whole thing of how we each experience the world, whether thatās in words, pictures, sounds, smells etc is very much related so I think itās all valid it comes under the same thread
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Hi,
Yes, I will actually say that laterā¦ but I did talk (think) about 2 different things, one of which (the busy head) may have an overlap for meā¦
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Absolutely not, I have no visual memories of anything. My wife often asks if I remember going on holidays, and when we did certain things. With a prompt I can usually start rebuilding memories, but they would usually be very basic. Certainly nothing like I was wearing a green shirt and you with a pink dress.
I have reconnected with friends from school and university, but until I give it a lot of thought, I have no memories. In fact even recent things get pushed out of my memory quickly. I would be useless as a witness, because I donāt focus on details unless I do it consciously.
I used to work for kodak, and know how much information is stored in a photograph. The best way I can describe it is, my world is built on describing the scene. So only the things that really matter are captured, and recall takes time.
However if I have been somewhere before I remember it, and and how to get there. My wife watches documentaries and I usually have headphones on watching something else. I can here a few lines of it and say, youāve seen this before, and she takes ages to come to that realization. US tv is very repetitive though 
At work I could remember all the conversations I had, and would replay them in my mind. Particularly when someone tries to rewrite history. If I think I misspoke or said something wrong, I would find myself replaying those things over and over.
Also when I first realized this lack of mental images was in 1996, I had just moved to America and went for hypnosis to try to improve my eating habits (a whole can of worms Iām not going to open here 
) It washing flashing lights in glasses, random sounds and a man with a very soothing voice, talking me through a visualization. Of course the visualization didnāt work, but the hypnosis did to some extent.
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I have obviously thought about this a lot, knowing how my mind works I recognize which techniques wonāt work for me.
I am fairly sure that there will be somebody on this board, who when they think about the guitar fretboard have lights that they āseeā on the fretboard about what notes to play. In RockSmith there is a session mode where the notes to play in an improvisation are highlighted and change with the music. I expect there are people for whom the fretboard does that in their mind. I am very jealous of that.
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Hi Phil,
Sorry if I missed it, I just scanned it all very quickly and Iām wonderingā¦ are you completely happy with it or are you also looking for solutions?
You seem happy 
Greetings
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