Are you Mind Blind?

How well do you visualize things you remember or imagine? Try to imagine this: You have climbed to the top of a hill. You scramble to the top of some rocks. Ahead of you, past some more hills with trees on them, is a mountain range rising above the hills. The sky is mostly blue with a few fluffy clouds, and a plane going by leaving a contrail.

How well did you visualize that? Could you see it in your mind’s eye? Or was it just a description without an image?

If you couldn’t visualize it, then you may have aphantasia, a condition that 2-5 percent of people may have. This can affect how well we can recall things, to how we can imagine the future, and even dream.

See links for more information:

  1. Being ‘mind-blind’ may make remembering, dreaming and imagining harder, study finds
  2. A cognitive profile of multi-sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in aphantasia

Happy Summer Solstice

How would you like to watch the summer solstice sunrise or sunset at Stonehenge?

The solstices are the two days when the sun is the furthest north or south from the celestial equator. The full path that the sun takes over the year is the analemma. The solstices are the furthest north and south points on the analemma.

Stonehenge is one of the most well known monuments. The ring of standing stones was built between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE. This English Heritage website is doing/has done livestreams of sunrise and sunset from the site.