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I had a friend who could do this. It was remarkable how easy it was for him. I asked him how he did it, he said it was easy. When he thought of the word, the vi

I had a friend who could do this. It was remarkable how easy it was for him. I asked him how he did it, he said it was easy. When he thought of the word, the visual image of the word would appear right in front of him in his mind, and he would just scan the letters backwards. It made me realize that some people's "default" mental powers can be significantly different.

lvncelot 3y ago
That's really crazy. I mean spelling words backwards in your minds eye seems like something you could pick up rather easily, but then deconstructing the associated sounds and reconstructing what they'd sound in reverse on-the-fly is really something.
- netrus 3y ago
  I'd guess one would use a voice recorder to practice the skill, that way you get pretty fast feedback on how to make the right sounds in reverse. As a child I practiced to say my name in reverse, as the voice recorder in Windows 3.1 (or 95?) was an obvious invitation to play around with. It could reverse, slow-down or speed-up (Mickey mouse voice!), and gave you a visual feedback.
Darmody 3y ago
It's like the people who can see the calendar in their heads. You ask them about an exact date from 1969 and they'll say, oh yeah, it was Monday. Or people who don't have an internal dialogue. This is probably the most weird to me because it is common and I can't comprehend how they manage their thoughts.
- stavros 3y ago
  I manage my thoughts without an internal dialog the same way you do, I just don't "read" them to myself afterwards.
- nicolas_t 3y ago
  When I was a teen, I discovered some people didn't have an internal monologue and so I experimented in doing that (under the very misguided impression that it would allow me to think faster, to my defense I was a teen...). It's actually possible to switch to that way of thinking relatively quickly if you make the effort, feels strange though.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  I can think in dialog, or I can think in 'no-words' which is language-less thought. I tend to program while thinking in 'no-words' or when I'm speaking my non-native language (English). When I think in 'no-words,' I sometimes find ideas that cannot be translated and can get stuck. A pretty common one is the idea of 'this-here' and 'this-there' when comparing two things that are currently unlabeled. I have to remember to back up and label the things with language, then compare them. Another common one is when trying to explain complex interactions that are quite simple in 'no-words' and I have to start diagramming things, then explain the diagram in language.
  - hoseja 3y ago
    I think this may be common with us multilingual shaperotators.
  - shannifin 3y ago
    This happens to me a lot when writing fiction; I can see the action or feel the emotion I want, but finding the words to describe can sometimes be very difficult. (Also depends on what time it is, I'm particularly bad at it in the morning.) Related is when you forget a word. You've got the specific meaning in your mind, and you know there exists a word for it, and it's in your brain somewhere, but you just can't get the appropriate neurons to fire to give it to your conscious mind. (And then it might randomly appear to your during some other random task.)
  - drdeca 3y ago
    While to some degree I think I’ve had somewhat similar experiences, at other times (when I was a teen) when I’ve specifically tried to think-without-words, I thought I had, and then shortly afterwards either realized or thought I had realized, that I had been thinking with words, and had just been hiding the words from myself?
- lordnacho 3y ago
  How do we know that that is actually what's happening? Perhaps they don't understand the idea of an internal monologue the way most of us do? Also does it extend to visual imagination? I think of myself as having an internal cinema rather than just monologue.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
    You might be able to devise a test. Try these things out. Count in your head at a steady pace using words and try to hold a conversation at the same time without losing your timing. Then imagine a moving image of the same numbers steadily ticking over and again try and hold a conversation without losing your timing. The 2nd scenario should be easier. You can do similar things with memorising numbers. Next time you have to enter your OTP, sound out the digits to memorise it before entering it. Then try memorising a picture of the numbers before entering it.
- sparrowInHand 3y ago
  Thoughts just appear- its like the subconcious just lets them float upwards into you. Which is funny, because when asked how you did arrive at the solution, you just do not have any answer, and then your subconcious makes up a whole story.
- mabbo 3y ago
  > You ask them about an exact date from 1969 and they'll say, oh yeah, it was Monday That's actually a really simple parlor trick. There's a formula involving modular math. Takes an hour or two to learn it.
- Enginerrrd 3y ago
  >Or people who don't have an internal dialogue. This is probably the most weird to me because it is common and I can't comprehend how they manage their thoughts Lol, I am someone with no such internal dialog. The idea that you self-narrate every thought in your brain seems utterly baffling to me. And... It sounds absolutely maddening, and really inefficient. Like that must be SO annoying? I think largely in the form of something I call "thought-shapes".
somenameforme 3y ago
You might be alluding to this by putting "default" in quotes, but I think things like are pretty much always learned skills. The various memory competitions are probably the best example of this. It's not there are people who can just pick up a deck of cards and naturally remember the order they were in. Everybody learns, and uses, extensive tricks to do so. The most typical for memory competitions is to associate each card with some vivid image in your mind. And so when you memorize the cards, you're not really memorizing the cards but instead creating a story in your mind of how those images interacted, and then reciting that story back. Language itself is another example of this. The above paragraph is 94 words, yet you could probably recite it pretty much verbatim in terms of what was said, even if using different words. Think about how absurdly remarkable that is. You just "memorized" 94 words without even trying. So I guess it begs the question of why some guy would spend a bunch of time teaching himself to reverse phonemes. The linked YouTube channel is called Alone Time Club, and features videos of him in the wilderness alone, and now he's cashing in his skill to some quirky 15 seconds and a few dollars. Probably a better expenditure of free time than what most of us do, all things considered!
- sparrowInHand 3y ago
  > but I think things like are pretty much always learned skills. What if it isnt? What if there is a zoo out there, with loads of different people with different skills just because the brain-maturation took a entirely different turn when they were a baby/child or the genetics did play out strange? Why is such a world of mental diversity so threatening to even just imagine? I find the thought of a alien mind just waiting for a coffe right next-to-me exhilarting and fascinating. Not to look at the sky, just to listen and find out that not everyone is a carbon copy of me (as my lazy flat copy mirror-neurons default implies) is a great adventure.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    It may not be so much threatening as much as knowledge is also a lot like this innate capability: > Language itself is another example of this. The above paragraph is 94 words, yet you could probably recite it pretty much verbatim in terms of what was said, even if using different words. Think about how absurdly remarkable that is. You just "memorized" 94 words without even trying.
liendolucas 3y ago
> the word would appear right in front of him in his mind Could that be somehow related to synesthesia? Not long ago I've read: "Wednesday is indigo blue" by Richard E. Cytowic and David M. Eagleman. Super interesting book and topic even if you're not into cognitive sciences. The book goes in depth how synesthetes radically perceive one or more features (sound, vision, taste) in "strange" ways compared to non-synesthetes. Highly recommended read though.
codesnik 3y ago
um, are we talking about English? because most words spelled backwards would be ambiguous how to read. With amount of different reading "rules" in English, it arguably close to being ideographic.
- shortcake27 3y ago
  I don’t think they mean reversing the spelling and pronouncing that as a new word. I think they mean taking the pronounced word and reversing the waveform. Ie what you would hear if you were playing an audio recording in reverse.
shannifin 3y ago
That might be his conscious experience when performing the skill, but doesn't really explain it. The real skill is in quickly reversing the appropriate phonemes. And then the question is why does that, controlling for practice time, come easier to some than others.
foobiekr 3y ago
I think these people are all around us and we just don't always recognize it. I have a friend who, in his youth, decided one day that he was going to be left handed because a teacher he admired was left handed and he wanted to be like them. He is genuinely left handed now. I'd heard of the opposite - often with severe treatment - with asian parents, but never that. On that note, I had a left handed teacher who could write sentences in kanji in full mirror mode two handed (both swapping left and right and double-swapping left-right/up-down). His parents had beaten him and taped down his disobedient left hand. I can read at full speed upside down. It makes absolutely no difference. It's a good party trick, and one had a practical purpose where someone was presenting an offer letter to me which had all the wrong values, which I knew because it was on the desk in front of them and I simply read it, so I pre-empted them and told them to go get a new letter made, much to their confusion. If you've ever known someone who was an expert non-digital artist, yes, it is true that they do typically practice a ton to hone their skills, but the ability to simply capture an object, person, animal or scene at a glance is uncanny. I know someone who has that skill, but for politics. They look at the situation and see exactly the players, the motives, etc. As far as I can tell, their entire career is based on this. A weird talent I've never heard anyone else describe.
- wheels 3y ago
  A lot of people simply don't have a dominant hand. They're typically grouped with the people for the hand they write with, but that's a pretty incomplete picture. I suspect your friend who "switched" never had a dominant hand in the first place. I'm one of those folks. I write left handed, but other stuff tends to be mostly, but not completely, right handed. This is mainly since there's a small advantage to right handedness (baseball gloves fit, mouses are there, guitars are right handed by default, etc.). There's a lot of randomness: I eat right handed, except when using chopsticks (left-handed), including long cooking chopsticks, but tongs (which have a similar purpose) are with the right hand. Assumed unrelated, but responding to a different part of your post: I can also read and write in mirror image with little loss of speed. I've never thought of that being particularly special. I just started randomly taking notes in mirror image in high school out of boredom (and right-to-left is slightly more comfortable for lefties).
User23 3y ago
I'm not fluent at it, but I think that might be because I overthink it. Often my first gut instinct is pretty close though. I can do it at what you might call a halting speed. I blame Amadeus of course. Gniklat sdrawkcab si nuf!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
iamthepieman 3y ago
I used to sing hymns in church backwards under my breath. I'm not fast, but I can talk backwards too if it's just word by word. Thinking of and saying an entire sentence back to front is significantly harder.

lvncelot 3y ago

That's really crazy. I mean spelling words backwards in your minds eye seems like something you could pick up rather easily, but then deconstructing the associated sounds and reconstructing what they'd sound in reverse on-the-fly is really something.

netrus 3y ago
I'd guess one would use a voice recorder to practice the skill, that way you get pretty fast feedback on how to make the right sounds in reverse. As a child I practiced to say my name in reverse, as the voice recorder in Windows 3.1 (or 95?) was an obvious invitation to play around with. It could reverse, slow-down or speed-up (Mickey mouse voice!), and gave you a visual feedback.

Darmody 3y ago

It's like the people who can see the calendar in their heads. You ask them about an exact date from 1969 and they'll say, oh yeah, it was Monday. Or people who don't have an internal dialogue. This is probably the most weird to me because it is common and I can't comprehend how they manage their thoughts.

stavros 3y ago
I manage my thoughts without an internal dialog the same way you do, I just don't "read" them to myself afterwards.
nicolas_t 3y ago
When I was a teen, I discovered some people didn't have an internal monologue and so I experimented in doing that (under the very misguided impression that it would allow me to think faster, to my defense I was a teen...). It's actually possible to switch to that way of thinking relatively quickly if you make the effort, feels strange though.
withinboredom 3y ago
I can think in dialog, or I can think in 'no-words' which is language-less thought. I tend to program while thinking in 'no-words' or when I'm speaking my non-native language (English). When I think in 'no-words,' I sometimes find ideas that cannot be translated and can get stuck. A pretty common one is the idea of 'this-here' and 'this-there' when comparing two things that are currently unlabeled. I have to remember to back up and label the things with language, then compare them. Another common one is when trying to explain complex interactions that are quite simple in 'no-words' and I have to start diagramming things, then explain the diagram in language.
- hoseja 3y ago
  I think this may be common with us multilingual shaperotators.
- shannifin 3y ago
  This happens to me a lot when writing fiction; I can see the action or feel the emotion I want, but finding the words to describe can sometimes be very difficult. (Also depends on what time it is, I'm particularly bad at it in the morning.) Related is when you forget a word. You've got the specific meaning in your mind, and you know there exists a word for it, and it's in your brain somewhere, but you just can't get the appropriate neurons to fire to give it to your conscious mind. (And then it might randomly appear to your during some other random task.)
- drdeca 3y ago
  While to some degree I think I’ve had somewhat similar experiences, at other times (when I was a teen) when I’ve specifically tried to think-without-words, I thought I had, and then shortly afterwards either realized or thought I had realized, that I had been thinking with words, and had just been hiding the words from myself?
lordnacho 3y ago
How do we know that that is actually what's happening? Perhaps they don't understand the idea of an internal monologue the way most of us do? Also does it extend to visual imagination? I think of myself as having an internal cinema rather than just monologue.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
  You might be able to devise a test. Try these things out. Count in your head at a steady pace using words and try to hold a conversation at the same time without losing your timing. Then imagine a moving image of the same numbers steadily ticking over and again try and hold a conversation without losing your timing. The 2nd scenario should be easier. You can do similar things with memorising numbers. Next time you have to enter your OTP, sound out the digits to memorise it before entering it. Then try memorising a picture of the numbers before entering it.
sparrowInHand 3y ago
Thoughts just appear- its like the subconcious just lets them float upwards into you. Which is funny, because when asked how you did arrive at the solution, you just do not have any answer, and then your subconcious makes up a whole story.
mabbo 3y ago
> You ask them about an exact date from 1969 and they'll say, oh yeah, it was Monday That's actually a really simple parlor trick. There's a formula involving modular math. Takes an hour or two to learn it.
Enginerrrd 3y ago
>Or people who don't have an internal dialogue. This is probably the most weird to me because it is common and I can't comprehend how they manage their thoughts Lol, I am someone with no such internal dialog. The idea that you self-narrate every thought in your brain seems utterly baffling to me. And... It sounds absolutely maddening, and really inefficient. Like that must be SO annoying? I think largely in the form of something I call "thought-shapes".

somenameforme 3y ago

You might be alluding to this by putting "default" in quotes, but I think things like are pretty much always learned skills. The various memory competitions are probably the best example of this. It's not there are people who can just pick up a deck of cards and naturally remember the order they were in. Everybody learns, and uses, extensive tricks to do so. The most typical for memory competitions is to associate each card with some vivid image in your mind. And so when you memorize the cards, you're not really memorizing the cards but instead creating a story in your mind of how those images interacted, and then reciting that story back. Language itself is another example of this. The above paragraph is 94 words, yet you could probably recite it pretty much verbatim in terms of what was said, even if using different words. Think about how absurdly remarkable that is. You just "memorized" 94 words without even trying. So I guess it begs the question of why some guy would spend a bunch of time teaching himself to reverse phonemes. The linked YouTube channel is called Alone Time Club, and features videos of him in the wilderness alone, and now he's cashing in his skill to some quirky 15 seconds and a few dollars. Probably a better expenditure of free time than what most of us do, all things considered!

sparrowInHand 3y ago
> but I think things like are pretty much always learned skills. What if it isnt? What if there is a zoo out there, with loads of different people with different skills just because the brain-maturation took a entirely different turn when they were a baby/child or the genetics did play out strange? Why is such a world of mental diversity so threatening to even just imagine? I find the thought of a alien mind just waiting for a coffe right next-to-me exhilarting and fascinating. Not to look at the sky, just to listen and find out that not everyone is a carbon copy of me (as my lazy flat copy mirror-neurons default implies) is a great adventure.
- mistermann 3y ago
  It may not be so much threatening as much as knowledge is also a lot like this innate capability: > Language itself is another example of this. The above paragraph is 94 words, yet you could probably recite it pretty much verbatim in terms of what was said, even if using different words. Think about how absurdly remarkable that is. You just "memorized" 94 words without even trying.

liendolucas 3y ago

> the word would appear right in front of him in his mind Could that be somehow related to synesthesia? Not long ago I've read: "Wednesday is indigo blue" by Richard E. Cytowic and David M. Eagleman. Super interesting book and topic even if you're not into cognitive sciences. The book goes in depth how synesthetes radically perceive one or more features (sound, vision, taste) in "strange" ways compared to non-synesthetes. Highly recommended read though.

codesnik 3y ago

um, are we talking about English? because most words spelled backwards would be ambiguous how to read. With amount of different reading "rules" in English, it arguably close to being ideographic.

shortcake27 3y ago
I don’t think they mean reversing the spelling and pronouncing that as a new word. I think they mean taking the pronounced word and reversing the waveform. Ie what you would hear if you were playing an audio recording in reverse.

shannifin 3y ago

That might be his conscious experience when performing the skill, but doesn't really explain it. The real skill is in quickly reversing the appropriate phonemes. And then the question is why does that, controlling for practice time, come easier to some than others.

foobiekr 3y ago

I think these people are all around us and we just don't always recognize it. I have a friend who, in his youth, decided one day that he was going to be left handed because a teacher he admired was left handed and he wanted to be like them. He is genuinely left handed now. I'd heard of the opposite - often with severe treatment - with asian parents, but never that. On that note, I had a left handed teacher who could write sentences in kanji in full mirror mode two handed (both swapping left and right and double-swapping left-right/up-down). His parents had beaten him and taped down his disobedient left hand. I can read at full speed upside down. It makes absolutely no difference. It's a good party trick, and one had a practical purpose where someone was presenting an offer letter to me which had all the wrong values, which I knew because it was on the desk in front of them and I simply read it, so I pre-empted them and told them to go get a new letter made, much to their confusion. If you've ever known someone who was an expert non-digital artist, yes, it is true that they do typically practice a ton to hone their skills, but the ability to simply capture an object, person, animal or scene at a glance is uncanny. I know someone who has that skill, but for politics. They look at the situation and see exactly the players, the motives, etc. As far as I can tell, their entire career is based on this. A weird talent I've never heard anyone else describe.

wheels 3y ago
A lot of people simply don't have a dominant hand. They're typically grouped with the people for the hand they write with, but that's a pretty incomplete picture. I suspect your friend who "switched" never had a dominant hand in the first place. I'm one of those folks. I write left handed, but other stuff tends to be mostly, but not completely, right handed. This is mainly since there's a small advantage to right handedness (baseball gloves fit, mouses are there, guitars are right handed by default, etc.). There's a lot of randomness: I eat right handed, except when using chopsticks (left-handed), including long cooking chopsticks, but tongs (which have a similar purpose) are with the right hand. Assumed unrelated, but responding to a different part of your post: I can also read and write in mirror image with little loss of speed. I've never thought of that being particularly special. I just started randomly taking notes in mirror image in high school out of boredom (and right-to-left is slightly more comfortable for lefties).

User23 3y ago

I'm not fluent at it, but I think that might be because I overthink it. Often my first gut instinct is pretty close though. I can do it at what you might call a halting speed. I blame Amadeus of course. Gniklat sdrawkcab si nuf!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

iamthepieman 3y ago

I used to sing hymns in church backwards under my breath. I'm not fast, but I can talk backwards too if it's just word by word. Thinking of and saying an entire sentence back to front is significantly harder.