Hey, /lit/. I want to know if you can help me identify a term for what it is I dislike in literature, and whatever problem is making me dislike it, so that I can better explain my situation to others and find books that suit me. I supposedly read and process information as well as the average adult, at least, according to tests I've taken. However, when text is used to describe an image, I cannot use it to form one in my mind. For example, as much as I enjoyed The Lord of the Flies, there were entire segments that made no sense to me, including the final act of the book. Even brief descriptions of characters mean nothing to me. These sections just bore and confuse me, and I have to skip over them, which makes me feel awful.Ironically, I'm an English major.
I've found that there are some books lacking these elements, such as Welcome to the NHK, Happy Smekday, and Notes from the Internet Apocalypse, as well as every script of a stage play. However, I think that all three novels I mentioned were made for young readers, as I could breeze through them in one sitting.
tl;dr Armchair psychoanalyze me or someshit, I dunno.
>>7643697
Sorry, /lit/ is a board of pseudo-philosophers, not pseudo-psychologists. Talk to a psychiatrist.
>>7643704
Yeah we're just here for the Dfw memes
>>7643697
You have bad taste that you try to justify to yourself by pretending there's something broken in your brain. To maintain this self-scam, you then need to keep your bad taste consistent, so you deliberately refuse to enjoy other things, maintaining the bad taste cycle and cutting yourself off from countless pieces of amazing literature.
That or there's actually something broken in your brain and you're a literal retard with effeminate faggot levels of inability to visualize concrete details. Actual can't-take-care-of-yourself autism.
Take your pick.
>>7643697
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ThHHOxlck
>>7643715
It has to be the second one, because I feel like I'd be so much happier reading books than watching movies. With movies, the only ideas that can be presented are what the budget allows for and the producers feel is worth funding. Words on paper cost virtually nothing to create. This means I could expose myself to all kinds of crazy stuff through books that could never be put on-screen. There have to be a jillion Synecdoche, New Yorks on paper for me, and I want to read them. So I can't really be willing myself not to be able to, can I?
>>7643730
You are pathologically lazy. You don't want to put in the effort to visualize things, and you feel a deep resentment towards authors for expecting you to try. It's okay, I see it all the time... in goddamn CHILDREN WHO ARE LEARNING TO READ, FOR FUCK'S SAKE
>>7643730
If you do genuinely have something wrong with you, talk to a psychiatrist.
>>7643730
Maybe you have that disease they talk about where you can't visualize descriptions.
For example, if I say imagine a football field, you can't do it.
>>7643761
Aphantasia, that's what you might have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpK6ZJea9fk
As far as I've heard, they're desperate for more people to study.
You from the UK?
>>7643767
OP you are a special snowflake. Post butt.
>>7643767
>that's what you might have.
Actually, seems quite likely.
>>7643770
OP very well might be, why don't you shut your insecure ass up.
>>7643767
>You from the UK?
No, I live in the US. And thank you so much.
>>7643775
I wasn't joking.
>>7643767
OP doesn't need help, they need a good whooping. Read better or no supper, Billy!
>>7643778
You know what to do now.
>Apply for NEETbux for being mentally handicapped
>Sell yourself to researchers because you're a rare Pokémon
>Enjoy life
Godspeed OP.
>>7643779
Bro, the whole point of the phrase is that a special snowflake is a misnomer.
Learn to tone.
>>7643791
Chill, bro. I want OP to post butt, let's not scare him away with arguments.
>>7643697
A man with brown hair, a long nose and bright blue eyes hugged a smiling girl with golden curls.
OP, do you not visualize anything at all? What goes through your mind?
>>7643795
Sorry.
>>7643799
One question.
Which is the preferred way to write a senstence?
A man with brown hair, a long nose and bright blue eyes...
Or
A man with brown hair, a long nose, and bright blue eyes...
Should there be a comma before the "and"?
>>7643810
Sentence*
>>7643810
On a related note.
>>7643824
Kek. Thanks.
>>7643810
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
Greater men than we have already argued over this for decades.
>>7643810
If I say "A man with brown hair, tall and wide" you would think the man is tall and wide.
Ergo, if you say "A man with brown hair, a long nose and bright blue eyes" I ought to imagine a suspended pair of blue eyes and a nose.
Unless you're writing fiction based in the Fallout Universe, I personally like the latter of your two sentences.
>>7643785
I doubt that I could get a tugboat, since aphantasia was only recently discovered and almost certainly hasn't been incorporated into the DSM yet. Plus, I have a dream of being able to live on my own and possibly have a girlfriend, so the tugboat lifestyle wouldn't suit me.
>>7643793
I'd say it did change my life, though if Tumblr is anything to go by, self-diagnosis isn't something to be proud of.
>>7643799
I imagine me (I know what I look like from the mirror) with blue eyes. (I have brown hair, green eyes, and a pretty big nose, though it's more wide than long.) When you say "smiling girl with golden curls," I imagine Goldilocks from a specific illustration in a specific version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If you had to specify what I or the girl was wearing, though, I'd have trouble.
When I read The Catcher in the Rye, I imagined Mickey the Dick as Holden Caulfield. He suited the role surprisingly well. And when I read Nineteen Eighty-Four, I imagined Harold Smith from The Powerpuff Girls as Winston Smith. So yeah, I usually just take characters I recognize and paste them in the story.
>>7643836
Oh, I imagined Aphantasia would be total and utter mental blackness.
What did you draw as a kid?
>>7643836
That's pretty cool. I like you OP.
>>7643836
Aye', are you sure you have Aphantasia.
It's very normal not to be able to visualize faces I think, I've hears people say no one can actually create a face and any face you imagine is actually a compilation of a face you've seen in real life.
Take something simpler, like a stick, surely you can visualize it?
>>7643854
I drew stick figures.
>>7643866
>Aye', are you sure you have Aphantasia.
Not completely. I mean, I did literally just find out about it, and I was desperate for a label to attach to myself so I'd feel less retarded. Although, the website did say Aphantasia was a spectrum.
I can envision a stick, yes, and I can change the color of the stick to any one I'm familiar with, such as blue, green, or orange.
>>7643896
>blue, green, or orange.
This isn't an exhaustive list right? You can imagine most colors in the spectrum?
>>7643697
OP, can I ask you for your IQ, I'm curious to see if visualizing ability correlates with IQ.
Although you're just one individual but still.
>>7643910
Uhhh.. purple, blue.. I can't do specific shades. I mean, I know the names of specific shades, like violet or indigo, but I can't picture them.
>>7643915
It's either 121 or 122. I took two different tests and was off by one point the second time.
Speaking of IQ tests, when I did my second one, I was asked to come up with a character and describe what they look like. To do so, I needed a piece of paper and a pencil. I sketched out a doodle of what I supposed a person could look like, then tried to describe the doodle in words. At first, I tried just describing someone I knew well from memory, but I couldn't do anything more than hair color or body type.
>>7643917
Same here.
If it's a spectrum thing then I guess you might not be as much of a cash cow as a lab rat.
Still, I guess at least now you know what to read about further.
