Ok, bear with me - I recently found out that (most) people are not just using metaphor and flowery language when they say they visualise something with their brain. People actually get pictures? Visions and memories are more than just concepts in the dark (or pinky red if the sun is out)? I’ve only ever seen darkness or the inside of my eyelids refracting light. I remember faces by a descriptive list, if at all, not some weird internal VR or picture system.
Assuming my character has the same neurological traits as me, how do induced visions work; do they work? Would they be the first such intrusion of the visual into an otherwise blind minds-eye? If so, what is it actually like to see recalled or imagined images with your brain?? (Still a little wierded out that people claim to be able to actually do that tbh)
How do you normally think about fiction? It might be as simple as “everyone else sees a bird flying, but you just get the idea of a bird flying,” or your character’s entire visual apparatus could get hijacked by the vision so that instead of seeing a tent in a muddy field, you’re just seeing the vision, rather than seeing it in your mind’s eye.
I seem to be only slightly visual - I can get brief still images in the mind’s eye but mostly I think in words and concepts, and I could probably run a decent prophetic style off that - my mind just going “BIRD IN FLIGHT. SNOWY HILL. SPLASH OF BLOOD.” without any visual input.
I typically enjoy the sentence structure and use of words - or I get an emotional or empathetic response from the words (which incidentally will all be in versions of my internal monologue voice, as if I’m the only actor in a radio play - and also standing in for the orchestra by way of humming along if a particular piece of music is alluded to: War of the Worlds is literally “Bom Bom Bommmmm, bombombom bombombom, Bom Bom Bommmmm” etc from that same monologue)
Tbh, the lasting sense I get of a production, other than remembering that at the time I enjoyed it, I may as well read a script: for example I know I enjoyed it when I saw the RSC Macbeth, and I know a lot of the lines but it’ll always be me reciting them to myself, never Patric Stewart.
If I recall the brain scans from Exeter correctly the difference between aphantasia and typical is that most folks visual cortex lights up when they recall or imagine in the same way as when they directly experience, whereas mine would stay dark. There are suggestions from some that hallucinogenics may work on different pathways; certainly I have read about people experiencing imagery, but I’m not sure I want to experiment with them in order to gain a frame of reference (and even then, as the imagery is confabulation rather than recall, would it apply?) I can imagine either being utterly horrified at the sheer intrusion of imagery and sound into my head, or competely dependant on repeating the experience: neither strike me as a positive
Might be most sensible to play it as a narration into your internal monologue, then? Your character gets the text of the vision said to them in their own voice, the same way they would if they were recalling it or reading the script but without having experienced it in the first place.
(I tend to work on a principle of minimal weird for a given player; if you want to make more of a thing of it other options might work, but I’m approaching this with intent to let you get the delicious symbolism without having to play something that intrusively other.)
A note on Pure Liao visions, as opposed to things like Signs and Portents: they play out like a full experience thing; while you’re in them it’s not like imagining something or remembering it, it’s being there. I’d play that exactly how it’s physrepped - it’s not a vision, it’s an experience, just the same way as anything else you see, except it’s happening in the Labyrinth of Ages and also the past because WAVES HANDS WILDLY AND YELLS INCOHERENTLY ABOUT SOULS
The TLV is really useful (should I ever have one)
Signs and Portents type visions I still have a mental stumbling block on, but I guess intuiting the shape or sense of a thing maybe? Separating out one thought from the 8000 or so that clamour for attention at any point is difficult (in day to day life I’m quite often wearing ear plugs inside noise cancelling headphones to take the edge off the sensory overload) so the concept of adding in an 8001st voice imparting knowledge is difficult. Hmm.
It’s the understanding of it on a conceptual level I guess.
Perhaps automatic writing/psychography?
With Signs and Portents the dream is read out loud to you in words, so you can try to remember as many or as few (few in my case) as the words as you can, OC.
IC, automatic writing would work for me.
Signs and Portents they give you the slip of paper to read as many times as you like before you give it back and get the chance to write it down. I’ve never had mine read to me.
Automatic writing would probably be perfect for you. You can play that you weren’t even conscious for the vision so you only have what you wrote to work off of.
Signs and Portents they give you the slip of paper to read as many times as you like before you give it back and get the chance to write it down. I’ve never had mine read to me.
Yup, sorry, it was a slip of paper. fail
Thank you all, it’s going to be a lot more comfortable (less alien) going forward with the automatic writing.
(A Past Life vision, which is… somewhat rarer, is a fully immersive all-sense out-of-body experience. OOC, you physically play out the scene, like it was Assassin’s Creed or something.)