As I was talking to myself about how communicating abstract concepts in sign language works (and I’ve seen that reported for informal sign language: I’m sure formal sign language can also handle abstract concepts), I also started to wonder how a deaf person with synesthesia thinks.
And then about synesthesia for abstract concepts for anybody. As a person with very poor visualization skills, I think that the ability to visualize abstract concepts as signs, or movements, or colors, could be wonderful. I could short-circuit some of that very complex conversation I have to have to deal with abstract concepts.
I can imagine just categorizing “Republican” as a splash of color. Unfortunately, although I can see colors, I can’t imagine them.
Ok, it appears I created it trying to conceptualize the different processes people are describing. Looking at the linked articles, they don’t make that distinction. They just refer to inner monologues being of different amounts. Some people have an inner voice at times, but others have one that won’t shut up.
However, that video by Hank Green starts with the definition that internal monologue is always talking, so I’m not the only one confused.
I have twice dreamt in monochrome, and several occasions in cartoon format. Yeah, an anecdote, but sufficiently rare to be very memorable.
Most of my dreams are in full colour, normal view, but a jumble of nonsense. The ones I describe above seemed to have a fairly bizarre though coherent storyline, but also storyline including loop-backs to earlier plot points.
Part of my not-well-stated point was that if you don’t have experience with black-and-white media (or cartoons) why would you dream in them? (I wrote: "I would assume you’d need a reference, like growing up with black and white entertainment — to normally do so? ")When I’ve heard this factoid presented to me, I’ve never thought it makes sense that we, as humans, would dream in black and white, as the only real experience we would have with that is through media, and plenty of humans have never been exposed to BW media (especially before the 20th century.) It’s just a suspicious claim on the surface. My hypothesis would be that those who grew up consuming black-and-white TV and movies would be much more likely to dream in black-and-white. So we’re looking at the Silent Generation and Boomers, mostly.
But why would I dream outside a moonlit night context in black and white? If I’m dreaming of the night it makes sense. If I’m dreaming of day it doesn’t.
That, I don’t know; except that dreams are often odd and show things out of their usual context. I was responding to your apparent claim that people before black-and-white photography and TV would have no experience of what it’s like to see in black and white.
I imagine we can only dream about what we can imagine, and imagination is shaped by experience, eg watching cartoons, B&W movies etc.
It is impossible to know, but… why do people see rotationally symmetric hallucinations after a blow to the head, or after ingesting certain psychedelic drugs? Rotational symmetry is reasonably rare in nature, (Fibonacci being both more common and more cool. Ok. Sure. Think of the starfish and the flowers…) and we humans are only one dimensionally symmetric. At that only superficially, our internal organs are just jammed in there any way Mother Nature could find a place.
It is really hard to establish a hypothesis that can answer why we dream, what we dream of and - despite a bunch of woo - what dreams mean.
My amateur theory is that dreams are the TV of the mind… we watch TV to distract and calm the mind - to avoid active thinking. Of course I have no research to back myself.
I’m not sure if I can say this here, so I am going to step carefully and flag this post for a mod to consider.
I used to use psychedelics. I’ve had a number of “bad trips”, particularly on high doses of LSD, but other chemicals too.
What I have experienced in that situation is that my mind separates into the “oh my god I am freaking out” part, and the “inner monologue” part that says “look, you are having a bad trip… ride it out, you only have 5 hours to go”.
So my mind can handle both states simultaneously . I don’t think it would be possible without the “inner monologue”, and having tried talk people down, it is fucking hard with the “outer monologue”, but possible.
Do you dream in wireframe? I’m talking dreams here. And, no, you don’t need to dream in color. I never said one did. I’m just fascinated if some people do. Do you? It’s kinda cool that some brains seem to remember things as brightness values, whereas mine chroma and luma are rightly linked. Like I can’t properly imagine a scene in black and white while conscious. I can sorta do it, but when I’m in Photoshop and want to edit luminosity separate from color, I have to switch the mode to bw, as I don’t get all the brightness values right in my imagination.
I find it difficult to imagine an image at all. I can sort of imagine some black-and-white images – the moon – and I can imagine a scene – my old school – while also imagining that it is in color — but that doesn’t mean I can imagine it in color.
Regarding dreams specifically, it’s not that I remember them in B&W, it’s just that the memory never includes any color information.
That’s interesting. Imaging to me is a bit distinct. Like, I personally can visualize pretty okay, but it does tend to be fuzzy, maybe even wire-frame-like at times. It’s really hard to put into words. It’s a very different experidnce than a dream, which is like reality, or at least remembered like reality to me. It’s interesting that color infomration gets stripped out, at least in the memory. I guess I don’t remember colors in my dreams unless I think of the dream freshly when I’ve awoken or if color were an important part of my dream. But it’s also not quite – for me – dreaming in black-and-white. I’m sure the dreams themselves had color should I have paid attention to them, but when removed chronologically from the dream, that information isn’t quite as retained. So maybe it’s not that odd an phenomenon at all.
I was reading a book by the ornithologist Marzluff, and he seemed to casually explain dreaming (as in, “you already knew this so I don’t need to explain it”) as a sort of side effect of the brain doing basic mental housekeeping: sorting, filing, categorizing the information of the day. The longer we go without sleep, the goofier we get (or as I am fond of saying, if life is not funny, you must be getting enough sleep), and our brains need that down time to clean up and level out – dreams are the noise that the forebrain reacts to as the midbrain is straightening up the office. “AI” thingies get pretty weird because they lack the natural cleanup phase that higher reasoning system require.
This describes me as well. My inner voice doesn’t shut up.
Also true for me.
Then again, I struggle with intrusive thoughts.
I mean, it can get pretty bleak when I’m going through a depressive episode. But it’s not coming from some unidentified source, and I don’t hear it as somebody else. But I’m certainly not happy and in control over its morbid talk.
That’s not to say that I can’t direct my inner voice. If I’m preparing for something, I might be practicing what I’m going to say. Or I might be amusing myself with some flight of fancy, Walter Mitty style.
But since it’s always active, the voice can also plumb the depths of my psyche when I’d prefer to be focusing on the moment - showers seem to be an awfully good time for it to get into regret.
Maybe that’s why I enjoy going to the gym and lifting weights - when you’re completely preoccupied with something physical that is happening, the voice can’t get distracted; it’s definitely going to yap about the moment (I know it’s a bad workout when my mind is wandering)