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Making good progress with the book and did some good work on it today. I was up to 64000 words by the end of the day (target is 80,000) and have pretty much got the story of my year down (just need to work on the conclusions at the end) and am now adding in material about the history and cultural significance of testicles, which will slot in between the chapters. Hopefully I will be able to do all this by the end of next week. This book has come together pretty easily and without too much stress, which is very unusual. It's just been about finding the time to have a clear run at getting on with it.
I read the first half, which I haven't looked at for a few months and I am really pleased with it. When you leave a bit of writing for a while, you can come back and impress yourself and sometimes feel almost like someone else must have written it. With this book, I just have to tell my story and amazingly it works quite naturally from possible disaster to personal triumph - or at least realisation. But let's see what the editor (and then the public) say before I get too ahead of myself.
I have been attempting to tackle my aphantasia. Someone sent me a link to a video which claims to have a way to activate the mind's eye. I am not sure it will work as I had previously believed that aphantasia was not curable. But I thought I'd give it a go - what's the harm? Well a couple of people on Twitter have told me that attempting anything to cure this might lead to PTSD or other problems. Will it be too overwhelming to finally see in my mind? I do it every night when I am asleep.
So just in case it's a bad idea I am not sharing the link just yet. I tried the technique a couple of days ago and I definitely saw some stuff that wasn't just blackness - but had not control over the stuff (mainly colours) that I saw. I forgot to do it for the next two days, - it apparently takes about 9 days to have any effect - but tried again today and again, lots of swirling colours (though not sure how much was to do with outside light). It did make me feel quite nauseous afterwards and a little unsettled generally, so maybe I shouldn't be meddling in things that I don't understand (but there's nothing much to all of this, apart from keeping your eyes closed, so I am not sure that that can really do too much harm.
But what if I break through into a new reality and can't cope with the ability to finally conjure up images inside my head? Will it drive me insane? More insane? What if it makes me sane? What if the secret to my comedy is the inability to imagine in the way that most normal people do?
Until I was asked by a tweet to picture an apple in my head I actually had no idea that I couldn't picture stuff in my head. I actually thought I could. But I can't. With my eyes open I can get sort of flashes of things I'm thinking about and an idea of a face or an object, but it's like a reflection on water that's happening sort of behind my eyesight and exists only for a second or two.
Was I ever able to see stuff in my head? I remember counting sheep to put myself to sleep and them jumping over a fence. But was I just thinking of the concept or could I once make images appear in my mind? Apparently sometimes childhood trauma can cause people to lose the ability to visualise things. I don't think I had a trauma. What if I cure myself and discover that I did have a trauma that I've suppressed.
Maybe that's why some psychologists think it's a bad idea to try.
Overall I think that if it was possible to cure this condition then the information of how to do so would be more readily available. But as this is pretty much just some meditation so I can enjoy it as such and probably carry on my life just as before.
I will share the technique if it works - unless I get sucked off in a vortex (fingers crossed) and am left a shell that can no longer communicate with the outside world, because I am so wrapped up in the fantasy one that I have created and can now see.
I just want to have a life like one of you norms.
Sadly I was unable to be on the bill, but they're using the RHLSTP cameras and streaming equipment!
