Oh, just to be clear—hyperphantasia is how I “see” dead people, but that’s just one mechanism. There are about 12 different non-material senses that one can develop. These can be conjured at will (which is what most people with limited but functional understanding do in occult practices).
Just as our five physical senses are meant to process material input, these non-material senses—like our internal sense of magnitude, perspective, self, desire, thought, and feeling—are designed to process non-material input. They interpret all the electricity and frequencies that can’t be fully grasped through the material plane alone.
As children, we learned to walk and dreamed of flying. As an adult, I’ve found that expanding consciousness is much like learning to fly—because unlike the body, consciousness isn’t bound by gravity.
Anyway, all this to say: that’s how talking to the dead works—by developing the inner or non-material body and expanding one’s senses beyond the material.
And at its core, diversity in culture is one of the fundamental triggers for developing inner sensory experiences. Because diversity of culture requires more context when communicating, it naturally strengthens these non-material senses—forcing individuals to expand their perception, intuition, and ability to interpret meaning beyond surface-level words. When an individual is exposed to difference, expansion in cognitive development begins. How one proceeds from that expansion—whether they continue growing or stagnate—reflects their understanding of their own cognitive experience.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) acknowledges this, but the colonial reaction to diversity has always been rejection of growth. The further someone is from integrating diversity into their Self, the more these cognitive limitations persist—and, inevitably, worsen.
I’m so curious about relative rates of aphantasia and hyperphantasia across cultures and time periods. Is it purely biologically driven, or is it at least partially influenced by visual stimuli in early development?
Thank you for continuing to explore this topic. As one of the 0.7% I am self-interested, but the broader point on the social and policy implications of neural predispositions is a universally important one.
You too? I don't really spend so much citing but the pieces I linked to and excerpted are the best and most informative ones -- the jury is out on whether it is congenital or maybe a response to something. I am spending way too much time thinking about this....
How wonderfully provocative. I think immediately of a kind of Jamesian appreciation for the varieties of religious and other cultural experiences, which has been important in my own frame for understanding social identities like neurodivergent and trans that have come into focus in the decades after I came of age. Being open to "the profound diversity in how humans construct their inner experience of reality" means listening for voices trying to articulate an experience in language that cannot, at least initially, render such experience understandable.
Oh, just to be clear—hyperphantasia is how I “see” dead people, but that’s just one mechanism. There are about 12 different non-material senses that one can develop. These can be conjured at will (which is what most people with limited but functional understanding do in occult practices).
Just as our five physical senses are meant to process material input, these non-material senses—like our internal sense of magnitude, perspective, self, desire, thought, and feeling—are designed to process non-material input. They interpret all the electricity and frequencies that can’t be fully grasped through the material plane alone.
As children, we learned to walk and dreamed of flying. As an adult, I’ve found that expanding consciousness is much like learning to fly—because unlike the body, consciousness isn’t bound by gravity.
Anyway, all this to say: that’s how talking to the dead works—by developing the inner or non-material body and expanding one’s senses beyond the material.
And at its core, diversity in culture is one of the fundamental triggers for developing inner sensory experiences. Because diversity of culture requires more context when communicating, it naturally strengthens these non-material senses—forcing individuals to expand their perception, intuition, and ability to interpret meaning beyond surface-level words. When an individual is exposed to difference, expansion in cognitive development begins. How one proceeds from that expansion—whether they continue growing or stagnate—reflects their understanding of their own cognitive experience.
DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) acknowledges this, but the colonial reaction to diversity has always been rejection of growth. The further someone is from integrating diversity into their Self, the more these cognitive limitations persist—and, inevitably, worsen.
I’m so curious about relative rates of aphantasia and hyperphantasia across cultures and time periods. Is it purely biologically driven, or is it at least partially influenced by visual stimuli in early development?
Thank you for continuing to explore this topic. As one of the 0.7% I am self-interested, but the broader point on the social and policy implications of neural predispositions is a universally important one.
You too? I don't really spend so much citing but the pieces I linked to and excerpted are the best and most informative ones -- the jury is out on whether it is congenital or maybe a response to something. I am spending way too much time thinking about this....
Thanks, Hollis. The Bay Area Bookies dissolved, but we still have you.
I miss you all! Talking books with such a wonderful group of people was one of the real highlights of my time at Sonoma. Hi!
How wonderfully provocative. I think immediately of a kind of Jamesian appreciation for the varieties of religious and other cultural experiences, which has been important in my own frame for understanding social identities like neurodivergent and trans that have come into focus in the decades after I came of age. Being open to "the profound diversity in how humans construct their inner experience of reality" means listening for voices trying to articulate an experience in language that cannot, at least initially, render such experience understandable.