I have a necronomicon, but it has very basic binding, and I haven’t read it.

It was a housewarming gift that made me go “the fuck mate, you want me to die and leave the house to you or what?” Which was apparently the exact right response.

Same because the only answer is “someone who hopes it’s sentient”.

At least you don’t go through a series of false awakenings when it happens. Those are generally not the most fun, since at best they ruin lucid dreams (it’s sort of a way for your mind to go back to sleep, and typically resets your awareness of being in a dream), and at worst it fucks with your sense of reality big time.

That’s why I don’t nap anymore… I lucid dream sometimes, but usually not with naps. Those are just hyper realistic emotion bombs with full physical sensation.

So one day I was having one of my awful nap dreams, and it was super negative, so I decided to wake up. So I did. And then I realized I was still sleeping, and tried again… Dozens and dozens of times, every trick I could think of. I could feel my actual body unable to move (thanks sleep paralysis!), and I kept cycling back to dreaming, starting the whole thing over again.

I don’t have a minds eye for something to fade from, so that question doesn’t really make sense to me. I have my eyes and then when I close my eyes it’s either black or eyelid colored, nothing else, and I’m super unclear what seeing things in your mind is supposed to be like. Tho I do have super-vivid visual dreams these days (which did not happen until my late 20s, but aren’t at all uncommon for people with aphantasia) and because I only have open-eye sight and these dreams that seem totally real, I frequently have to ask people if things actually happened. It’s very disconcerting, but my understanding is that dreams are not really the same as waking minds eye anyway.

Rather than a visual representation, I’ll have a verbal description ready as soon as I see an item. So for the ball example, I’d know the ball is “small, about the size of a plum, solid pink somewhere between neon and intense salmon, smooth matte texture, looks like it might be foam”. It probably serves the same function as a visual representation, although perhaps with a bit more required specificity. I don’t really describe things to myself unless I need to, though, so I guess my thinking is sort of abstract. I know the traits something has, and can recall them, but typically don’t explicitly list them unless I’m describing for someone else.

One perk of this is I’m great at describing things I’ve seen or made up, a downside is I’m terrible when people describe things to me. Since I’ve never seen the thing being described, it is a super arbitrary list of usually non-specific features and I don’t care at all. I skip clothing descriptions in books, for example. Don’t care. But when I describe things, even made up things, I’ll run through a list of the features it needs as a minimum to be the object for my mind, which is usually vivid detail for others, as the ball example above.

Idk if I see things differently eyes-open, I don’t really think so, but that’s always been a curiosity of mine since there’s literally no way to know what other people see. I have mild impairments as a result of not being able to visualize, like I’m largely face blind - I have to pick out specific features and traits and use the combination as identifiers. I get a ton of false positives, and almost everyone “feels familiar”. Beyond that, I’m pretty sensitive to colors and patterns. Idk.

But the -way- you ask that first question makes me curious; If you close your eyes and intentionally picture something other than the ball, would you then be unable to tell me what color it was in your example? Do you, personally, require the visual representation to “know” the object?

Not really, but typically if I can see someone else do a motion I can self-insert the movements I’d need to make to duplicate it, so that might just be a disused function for me.

Although that’s a good question, because I do have special memory that I use for a lot of things, and it involves movement, but maybe not in the same way someone else would (eg I can count the windows in my place by simulating a walk through my house and “opening windows” like I do on nice mornings, but I often forget about out-of-the-way non-opening windows because they aren’t part of my muscle memory)

I’m aphantasic. You can say “picture this” followed by whatever you like. It’s not possible for me in any way. Growing up I honestly thought “picture this” or “close your eyes and see” was just metaphor. I legitimately didn’t understand other people can see things.

My mind has a verbal descriptive stream, and I’m good with muscle-based or proprioceptive spacial memory, and the two combine to handle most things, but nothing visual. So like I can easily describe things from memory or from an idea, and it’ll be fully consistent, but not something I see.

If you have aphantasia, and not just hypophantasia, it makes no difference how much detail is provided, there’s a total, fundamental, inability to visualize things.

That’s just English though ;)

I just got the quote to fix something and it’s about 5k more than insurance paid out so I’m at bees.

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As a kid I would hear “save big money” and would often show a person next to oversized money (like cartoon people next to giant dollars and coins).

I was absolutely under the impression it meant large scale money and found it confusing anyone would want that. It would be so inconvenient!

I’m not sure when I figured it out but it wasn’t an “a-ha!” moment, it just sort of gradually fell out of my brainmeat.

Skindred cd, case of strongbow, few bottles of liquor, promotional pack of jeagermeister swag (metal bar sign, bombshot glasses, thongs, t-shirts), and various other little things.

Customer appreciation golf outing then party night, everyone at the golf outing got raffle tickets (I didn’t go to that), but then got too drunk to keep track of them, so I ended up with like 12 of the winning tickets at the end of the night when everyone was clearing out.

One of my friends brings homemade hot sauce to the bar and gives little tester bottles to people tho.

If I end up with cancer that grows so fast that a mammogram every few years is the only way to catch it in time, then I frankly wouldn’t have great odds anyway.

But to more directly answer your question, I’m actually pretty unlikely to be willing to go through chemo and radiation treatments regardless if it’s a real threat to my life or not. If it can be excised via surgery, maybe, or if some of the new treatments (like the mRNA vax or the preventative vax) would handle it with minimal side effects, I would do that, but otherwise, nope. But surgery is pretty invasive so yes, I do think over-treatment for me specifically would be more harmful than just waiting to see if it gets worse, and then still doing the surgery.

I had parents in the medical field, and most of my deceased family has been taken down by cancers, so I know what I’m getting myself into, treated or not. My mom didn’t even bother with treatment (hospice only), because she spent enough time in oncology and hospice to know the outcomes. I took care of her throughout, and we had a lot of conversations about treatment and the reasoning behind not going that route, but ultimately people who work with cancer patients tend not to seek treatment themselves for a reason. And I tend to agree with their logic, given the current treatment options.

I’ve had gene screening for all known cancer genes and came up clean (tho I still get updates on my unknown mutations every few years). I was and still am fully prepared for a double mastectomy or whatever other surgical interventions if it ever becomes prudent. I do regular bloodwork, regular professional exams, plus I do fairly frequent self-screens (full body), so I’m not doing nothing, I’m just not doing mammograms.

To each their own, and by no means do I think nobody should be screened or go through treatment, it’s just not something I’m personally interested in doing.

Yep, inherited membership from my mother :)

I’ve wondered about that myself, actually, as a card carrying member of the itty bitty titty committee.

I can’t speak for mammography specifically, as I have absolutely zero intention of ever getting one (I take personal issue with how sensitive they are these days, as they frequently find tumors that never would have actually caused a problem because they are very slow-growing, leading to over-treatment) but for self-exams, do be aware that certain breasts can have more or less cystic tissue, which can change the feel of the breast. It’s not related to size, afaik, just your own composition, tho larger breasts have a lot more tissue to spread cysts and tumors through, so they might be more or less obvious.

Thus, self exams (for all Humans) are most valuable when you do them regularly, so you know what your own tissue normally feels like, and you can pick out new lumps and monitor them.

I have a lot of cystic tissue, so my breasts are normally a bit on the firm and lumpy side. Nothing to worry about, but if I didn’t know that was normal for me, I might think it was cancerous.

It’s part of the militarization of everything, and acts as patriotism propaganda.

Not only the anthem, but they usually have armed forces people, equipment, sponsorship, etc. and why it’s such a big deal with athletes don’t fawn enough over it (eg. the take a knee “scandal”)

Sports are a strong recruitment tool, being popular with men throughout their lives, and have been wildly taken over with military propaganda as a result.

That’s basically what “I’m a social drinker” means, so you can just say that.

Can you drop me there first, please?

I promise to be suitably wowed. Also, I’ll film them for you. Sacrifices for the greater good or whatever.

Of varying usefulness, yes.

If they melt too much, or the resulting melt is too thin, like straight coconut oil, they won’t stay in place long enough to do much.

The best fats for balms are solid or semi-solid at human skin temp, often blends of wax and whatever lipid. Or petroleum jelly. I’m not sure how that’s classified…

I mean even now they are just another niche religious community… I get what they were going for, but…

Their communities have a lot of problems. Like a lot. And because they mostly have that year of going into the world (intended as a culture shock, but really is just an introduction to modern convenience technology, which is mmmmm so enticing) their numbers are dwindling. And that sucks for the culture loss, but I doubt they will even exist in 50 years, honestly.

Or say they do exist in 50 years… they will be the people buying all the cheap shit that doesn’t meet emission regulations because they “have to weigh each new innovation”.

For as long as I’ve lived in close proximity to Amish communities (most of my life, again Midwest), they have always made weird questionable allowances that I don’t really understand because I’m not part of the community. Most of them get around their religious limitation by just hiring someone, that’s why they need money. I know this because my family was hired on multiple occasions (because we often did poultry trades and other livestock deals with them) to operate machinery (chainsaws, modern farm equipment, etc) on their behalf.

And doesn’t that just seem like modernizing with more steps?

That does, honestly, seem to be the threshold for the communities around me.

Can they use it in a way they can argue complied with their religion? If yes, and money, do thing. If yes, no money, do thing. If no, but money, try harder to argue, then do thing.

If no and no money, leave the community.