late Middle English: from Old French fantasie, via Latin from Greek phantasia ‘imagination, appearance’, later ‘phantom’, from phantazein ‘make visible’. From the 16th to the 19th centuries the Latinized spelling phantasy was also used.

Interesting how the word has evolved.

What is fantasy? A dream, a thought? If I want to go to the shop and then don't, did I have a fantasy? Is art a fantasy? Imagination?

Greek phantasia ‘imagination, appearance’

Quote:Visual imagery typically enables us to see absent items in the mind's eye. It plays a role in memory, day-dreaming and creativity. Since coining the terms aphantasia and hyperphantasia to describe the absence and abundance of visual imagery, we have been contacted by many thousands of people with extreme imagery abilities. Questionnaire data from 2000 participants with aphantasia and 200 with hyperphantasia indicate that aphantasia is associated with scientific and mathematical occupations, whereas hyperphantasia is associated with ‘creative’ professions.

Quote:On the basis of Galton's observation that scientific professions were associated overall with low imagery vividness, and the related findings of Blazhenkova and Kozhevnikov (2010), we hypothesised that individuals with aphantasia and hyperphantasia would differ in occupational preference, with a bias toward the sciences among those with aphantasia.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar...5220301404
 

Quote:Although the condition known as synaesthesia is currently undergoing a scientific resurgence, to date the literature has largely focused on the heterogeneous nature of synaesthesia across individuals. In order to provide a better understanding of synaesthesia, however, general characteristics need to be investigated. Synaesthetic experiences are often described as occurring ‘internally’ or in the ‘mind’s eye’, which is remarkably similar to how we would describe our experience of visual mental imagery.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar...0007000566

Anyone with aphantasia on the forum?

Dunno if I have aphantasia, though I can tell that it requires a considerable amount of effort and focus to make simple incomplete images in my mind. As such, I've mostly thought with words and sentences throughout life.

That might change in time, after all I did break my mental structure once.

(06-19-2025, 02:16 PM)IgnorantGod Wrote: Dunno if I have aphantasia, though I can tell that it requires a considerable amount of effort and focus to make simple incomplete images in my mind. As such, I've mostly thought with words and sentences throughout life.

That might change in time, after all I did break my mental structure once.

I break it every morning when I wake up and then spend the rest of the day fixing it. Do you meditate, what happens when you close your eyes?

I did start recently (for a month). Mostly 30 mins each, I most have bad positioning since I feel a pressure point on my back, right side, close to the arm.

I see amorphous colors, mainly purple and green, no images if I don't intend to vizualize one, unless I'm about to fall asleep (which happens when I'm focusing while lying on my back).

I'm slowly opening now, since I've forcefully made myself aware of my own arrogance some years ago. Though I do feel the need to finish what I've non-voluntarily started.

(06-19-2025, 03:12 PM)IgnorantGod Wrote: I did start recently (for a month). Mostly 30 mins each, I most have bad positioning since I feel a pressure point on my back, right side, close to the arm.

hmmm, when I did the Monroe tapes I thought the instructions was kind of shitty on relaxation...I was taught differently. You tense up first and then relax, so you would make a foot as tense as you can and then relax totally, and then do the other one and then the calves etc..move up the body...can't know relaxation without being tense.
You also need to wiggle your spine and pretend it's a snake beforehand, roll your shoulders, that pinch is probably from computer. The trick is you need to do the first exercise first to know relaxation so you relax through the pain when you wiggle. Not getting into the position that hurts is always an option also.
 

(06-19-2025, 03:12 PM)IgnorantGod Wrote: I see amorphous colors, mainly purple and green, no images if I don't intend to vizualize one, unless I'm about to fall asleep (which happens when I'm focusing while lying on my back).

It's weird how it works, we have to exert effort while "awake" and relax to get the trippy stuff. Both requires focus. You train focus by breathing and focusing on breathing. Eventually breathing becomes a trigger for focus. Focus and breathing becomes automictic and linked together and visualizations becomes intense without you having to do anything. Emotions obviously is key and heart rate can be controlled through breathing..

Images is a waste of time. Go on a journey

You walk on a path through a forest were the path goes through a shallow stream

As you walk through the stream you look down and see crystals, you pick one up and place it in your heart

You walk on and come to a small house

Outside is the Archangel Michael

He will protect you while you go inside and meet your guardian

hello Michelle! wtf did I put in my heart!! I was pink for a month! And Michael?! Why would you send me to an Archangel!! 

(06-19-2025, 01:56 PM)Sirius Wrote: If I want to go to the shop and then don't, did I have a fantasy?

No, you just evolved an Imagination of going to the shop to then deciding not to.

A Fantasy would have been believing you went to the shop but in Reality you didn't or believing you didn't go but in Reality you did. It would then hold no place in Reality with Common Sense.

Fantasy is something that does not belong to Common Reality without the need for the Imagination as a conduit, explanation or translation. Like the subject of a book or a movie which are acceptable, or a lie, which isn't.

Over time, Fantasies can become Reality, but they will always need Imagination to get there. A "Trinity" of things is fundamental.

(06-19-2025, 04:23 PM)Nerb Wrote: No, you just evolved an Imagination of going to the shop to then deciding not to.

A Fantasy would have been believing you went to the shop but in Reality you didn't or believing you didn't go but in Reality you did. It would then hold no place in Reality with Common Sense.

Fantasy is something that does not belong to Common Reality without the need for the Imagination as a conduit, explanation or translation. Like the subject of a book or a movie which are acceptable, or a lie, which isn't.

Over time, Fantasies can become Reality, but they will always need Imagination to get there. A "Trinity" of things is fundamental.

Sounds like a fantasy. Your brain cannot distinguish between imagination and reality. There is a easy trick you can do on someone where you tell them to close their eyes and visualize a black room. In the room there is a table. On the table is a lemon. You pick up the lemon and take a bite...normally the persons face will pucker up like they are really eating a lemon.

My imagination of going to the shop is a fantasy. I don't disagree. " A "Trinity" of things is fundamental."

If we take the Greek phantasia ‘imagination, appearance’ then fantasy is imagination. 

https://www.etymonline.com/word/imagination
imagination(n.)

Quote:"faculty of the mind which forms and manipulates images," mid-14c., ymaginacion, from Old French imaginacion "concept, mental picture; hallucination," from Latin imaginationem (nominative imaginatio) "imagination, a fancy," noun of action from past participle stem of imaginari "to form an image of, represent"), from imago "an image, a likeness," from stem of imitari "to copy, imitate" (from PIE root *aim- "to copy") 

It might also be the source of: Latin imago "image," aemulus "emulous," imitari "to copy, portray, imitate;" Hittite himma- "imitation, substitute."

"to copy, portray, imitate;"

(06-19-2025, 04:55 PM)Sirius Wrote: Sounds like a fantasy. Your brain cannot distinguish between imagination and reality

Speak for yourself. Your own logic reasons that a brain cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Your original question about going to a shop and then not, pertains to imagining both POSSIBLE scenarios, one after the other. Either of them COULD belong in reality.

There was no fantasy in the scenario, otherwise either scenario would have to be by definition an impossibility or an improbability due to known circumstances in the first place.

The only fantasy is your own connection to the scenarios after the event for the purpose of presenting a philosophical dilemma, rendering them irrelevant to common reality.

Cognition isn't for everyone. Why do you think the world of people is so confusing and mad?

(06-19-2025, 08:50 PM)Nerb Wrote: Speak for yourself. Your own logic reasons that a brain cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Your original question about going to a shop and then not, pertains to imagining both POSSIBLE scenarios, one after the other. Either of them COULD belong in reality.

There was no fantasy in the scenario, otherwise either scenario would have to be by definition an impossibility or an improbability due to known circumstances in the first place.

The only fantasy is your own connection to the scenarios after the event for the purpose of presenting a philosophical dilemma, rendering them irrelevant to common reality.

Cognition isn't for everyone. Why do you think the world of people is so confusing and mad?

I guess i deserved that, i don't know, feels insulting for some reason. Is this my imagination or yours, who is having the fantasy? It is okay to have fantasy, do not fear phantasia, she is beautiful and terrible. 

https://neurosciencenews.com/reality-ima...ain-29221/

Quote:Lead author, Dr Nadine Dijkstra (Department of Imaging Neuroscience at UCL) said: “Imagine an apple in your mind’s eye as vividly as you can. During imagination, many of the same brain regions activate in the same manner as when you see a real apple. Until recently, it remained unclear how the brain distinguishes between these real and imagined experiences.”

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-b...our-brains

Quote:One day the team were eating lunch in the same room as the monkeys and noticed that the neurons fired when the monkey wasn’t even performing an action. The monkey was watching one of the scientists bring food to his mouth and the same neuron that was involved in the monkey bringing food to its own mouth was activated. The scientists quickly realised that this really was a case of ‘monkey see, monkey do’.

Let us sync our hearts and breathing Nerb, 6-4-6-6 and be in love, it will be a wonderful fantasy
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-b...your-brain

Quote:For instance, people who sleep in the same bed have been shown to synchronise their heart rhythms, while otherresearch has observed that people’s breathing align when they are involved in a romantic relationship.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/inspiration

Quote:inspiration(n.)
c. 1300, "immediate influence of God or a god," especially that under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiracion "inhaling, breathing in; inspiration" (13c.), from Late Latin inspirationem (nominative inspiratio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin inspirare "blow into, breathe upon," figuratively "inspire, excite, inflame," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit (n.)). ,

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. [Genesis ii.7]

Quote:spirit(n.)
mid-13c., "life, the animating or vital principle in man and animals," from Anglo-French spirit, Old French espirit "spirit, soul" (12c., Modern French esprit) and directly from Latin spiritus "a breathing (of respiration, also of the wind), breath;" also "breath of a god," hence "inspiration; breath of life," hence life itself.

(06-19-2025, 08:50 PM)Nerb Wrote: Cognition isn't for everyone. Why do you think the world of people is so confusing and mad?

Cognition, ignition, what animates you? Anima, breathe, look up and breathe, say "Venus my Love, Aphrodite, Rose of my Sphere" and be filled her light

animate(v.)
1530s, "to fill with boldness or courage," from Latin animatus past participle of animare "give breath to," also "to endow with a particular spirit, to give courage to, enliven," from anima "life, breath" (from PIE root *ane- "to breathe")