Episode 10
Episode 10: Hyperphantasia, Visual Imagination & Improv
So in this episode you learn about the spectrum of visual imagination, from lots to none, and explore how you imagine visual details in improv. I cover what the spectrum of phantasia is, from hyperphantasia to aphantasia, then go into how it affects improv.
How you visually process details in a scene are not just important for exploring the environment, scene painting, or describing an object (the obvious parts). You can also use it to create characters or incorporate an emotion. Flash memory-ing an emotion involves phantasia! It affects a lot.
Can you improve your visual processing? Change where you are on the visual imagination spectrum? We’ll look at that kind of stuff too. I’ll give you some improv exercises to do to check out your own visual imagination.
Also apologies for using my space heater tonight half way through the recording. Oops. It cold! Removed most of the noise, but some artifacts remain. I’ll be cold next time or put on extra socks or something :)
About this podcast & links
This podcast is hosted/produced/etc by me, Jen deHaan. You can blame me for the whole thing. You can submit your questions, heckles, comments, blame, more heckles, or even a voice note on the website. Find the contact form for this podcast at FlatImprov.com/substack.
You can also subscribe to this podcast where you get your other podcasts - Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Castro, etc.
PLUGS:
I have online improv classes starting in February at World’s Greatest Improv School (WGIS) (weegis) that involves character stuff and a new form and online show format. For the Morning Show, apply by Tuesday Jan 30 ‘24! These will be fun:
* Character Point of View class
* Improvised Morning Show - learn the form, do a show series
TALK AT YOU NEXT WEEK, IMPROV NERD FRIENDS!
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Transcript
Welcome to the Neurodiversity and Improv Podcast from Flat Improv.
::I'm Jen deHaan, and I do improv stuff, and I like thinking about improv things too.
::These podcasts here are not for telling you what to do.
::They are just explanations about some cognitive stuff to help classes, teams, and improv in general be a little bit more inclusive, and maybe a little bit easier for some of us that think the way that we do.
::They're certainly not for diagnosis, so please don't use these episodes to diagnose yourself or anyone else.
::These episodes are just to think about the way that we think cognitively.
::Basically, these podcasts are for big improv nerds to be improv nerds.
::Like if you are subscribed or listening to this kind of thing, you are probably an improv nerd.
::So let's get started.
::Welcome to episode 10 of the series.
::We are keeping it really niche for this episode.
::In fact, I'm not even sure what a non-niche episode would even be in this series.
::I'm quite curious.
::Anyways, this episode will describe what hyperphantasia is and how this form of visual imagination can be utilized in improv.
::It's especially useful for memory over, say, a long form set.
::And it's especially great for creating characters or, say, figuring out what to do for a particular emotion word that you've been given to work with.
::Say that's an issue for you like it is for me.
::I'll cover what hyperphantasia and related visual processing is, and I'll provide an overview of how that affects and is used in improv.
::And I'll cover much more detail about characters and memory and memory recall in a future, even more, Nishi episode.
::Is Nishi a word?
::I don't like that word, but I'm, you know what, I'm going to leave it in.
::So the basics now.
::What is hyperphantasia?
::Hyperphantasia is described as a photorealistic imagination, a particularly strong ability to imagine visual details.
::Hyperphantasia is that one end of a spectrum.
::The other end of that spectrum is aphantasia.
::The spectrum is the general amount of visual imagination or visual processing you cognitively do.
::Most humans have some amount of visual imagination, just bearing degrees of use.
::So I think that most of you will probably know what I'm talking about, at least in a general sense.
::So hyperphantasia is a particularly vivid mental imagery or imagination.
::It's as vivid as you would see something with your eyes, but of course, imagined in your head.
::It's not actually seeing things.
::It's described and certainly true for me, as also connected to other elements of an environment like sound, humidity, emotions and so on.
::So when I remember something, say I'm recalling something from my past, I will potentially see that environment as vivid as I originally did.
::And I would also perhaps be remembering the sounds, humidity, emotions that I felt at the time, that kind of thing.
::I'll process all of these along with those visuals.
::Hyperphantasia is often tested on a casual basis by asking people to describe what they see in specific scenarios that are often very seen like in nature.
::Simple tests around recall of like what you had for breakfast the previous day and the level of detail that you remember of that breakfast.
::These sort of tests are described online.
::Like do you remember and feel everything as though you were sitting down there again, repeat and looking right at your breakfast?
::What was the light like?
::What was the room like?
::What were you hearing?
::What were you feeling?
::What was the plate?
::What was the type of fork you were using?
::Can you see it?
::Can you see the glints of light on that fork still?
::It's kind of like scene painting, but you're eating your breakfast from yesterday morning for real.
::Of note, though, there are studies with MRI tests, decoding and behavioral, psychophysical experiments and so on.
::But this is a niche field and access to getting those kind of tests is very limited.
::So most of us are left to reading on the Internet and doing those Internet tests.
::So it kind of comes down to if someone describes something to you, can you see a picture of it in your mind?
::If you try to recall a few days ago a particular scenario, can you see that again in your mind?
::If it was a particularly strong or notable thing that happened to you?
::How strong or what's missing in the level of detail is the spectrum?
::So it's also important to add what this is not about.
::What is hyperphantasia not?
::Hyperphantasia is not the same as photographic memory.
::Photographic memory is a short term and highly precise visual recall of something that you have seen.
::It's often described as like seeing a page of text very briefly and then that person is able to recite all of the words from memory, but they don't necessarily see the image anymore visually.
::If someone has eidetic memory, this person has a longer recall and they see the image.
::And both of these things are considered to be extremely rare, especially in adults.
::And they're also both unproven scientifically.
::Some of these things might be ability or training, memorization, etc.
::Hyperphantasia is more about photorealistic visualization or imagination, say of any kind of environment, a described one or a particularly notable memory of your past.
::For example, it's like visualizing while you read a book, what is described on the page, or recreating that memory of that thing that you've experienced in the past, and it doesn't necessarily have that same amount of detail specifically from the memory.
::The other two conditions, photographic memory and eidetic, are near perfect recall of very highly specific details.
::Anyways, the differences between these three things and these three specific topics as well in the scientific sense are beyond the scope of this podcast, and there's lots of information out there for you to go find on these other things if you're interested and want to do that deep dive.
::So, fantasia is on a spectrum and the two ends of the spectrum, hyperphantasia and aphantasia, each hold about two to three percent of the population.
::So, we're talking about four to six percent of the population in total.
::Everyone else is somewhere in between.
::So, the other end of the spectrum from hyperphantasia is aphantasia.
::And this is where the mind, the imagination does not form or construct mental images or visual representations of objects or environments.
::It doesn't mean that the memory is weakened and there is no cognitive impairment involved.
::Someone with aphantasia can still describe a scene like a sunset, but they just don't create a mental picture of it while they do so.
::Obviously, I don't know what the aphantasia experience is like, or of note other conditions in this general space.
::I do know great improvisers with aphantasia, because of course other forms of memory and recall are being used by them, and I'd be fascinated to hear more about improvising with the lack of visual imagery, and what other forms of recall are being used, and what that's like.
::But I don't know, so I'll leave it at that.
::So is hyperphantasia and aphantasia a neurodivergence or what?
::Hyperphantasia and aphantasia have been called neutral neurodivergence, or straight up a form of neurodivergence, a neurocognitive phenomenon, a psychophysical condition, and so on.
::They've been called a lot of things.
::They're also not generally considered to be disorders at this time.
::According to the sources I have come across, at least most of the science on the condition is focused on visual aspects as well, and there's a lot of disagreement in the literature.
::So, I won't get into the science because I won't do it any justice.
::And I'm also not sure there's a whole lot of relevance in this episode to the science part of it anyways.
::And I reckon that you aren't here for that deep dive either.
::But it's out there to access online if you're interested.
::And as with all of these variables that I've already mentioned and will mention, there are lots of overlaps with other forms of neurodivergence.
::So it's gonna be very, very different for everyone depending on what you have going on.
::So in this part of the podcast, I'm gonna talk about what is hyperphantasia like?
::What is the experience like?
::Because I don't know what it's like for aphantasia and I can't speak to that, but I'm very curious about that.
::So I should probably describe for you what my experience is like, because that might help you understand what you're experiencing a little bit more, how relevant this is to you, or maybe if you're teaching people or coaching people, this will help you understand what some of your students might be experiencing.
::Because even if it's not hyperphantasia, a lot of people could be very high on the fantasia spectrum towards it and might be experiencing things in their improv like this anyways.
::Or some of these tips might be helpful for you if you are average fantasia, like right in the middle of that spectrum.
::I don't know.
::Anyways, I'll explain what my experience is like.
::For a long time, I really thought that everyone thought and saw things kind of the same way.
::And this is really the very common neurodivergent experience of, wait a minute, doesn't everyone think this way?
::And then you're finding out that they don't.
::And this comes up a lot for us, I think, in the improv learning process, at least.
::And remember that it doesn't really matter what you specifically have, it's just how you end up using whatever processing skills you have wired in, how these personally affect you.
::I find having this sort of very heightened or hyperphantasia thing quite useful.
::I deal with the negative parts of it, especially in my real life, and I just kind of leave it at that.
::This is a tool like all the other tools we have in our brains, really.
::And for most of my life, I used hyperphantasia, and I didn't care or think much about it until improv.
::So first of all, let's think about the outside of improv experience of hyperphantasia.
::So the very basic fundamental use of hyperphantasia is to just remember things.
::You'd be remembering going to your grandmother's house.
::You might kind of do a visual walkthrough of that, or remember a very specific, notable dinner that you went to, and you would just see those things in your mind's eye.
::And based on where you are on that spectrum would be the level of detail, perhaps, that you remember about those specific events.
::And you're going to be bringing in other memories as well when you think back.
::Visually, it will bring up the emotional memory, those other senses, what weather was like, what was it like outside.
::You're going to remember potentially what time of day it is based on what the light is, that kind of thing.
::And you might have other experiences, different ones that don't involve remembering the past, but things that happen in real time as well.
::Say you're having a conversation with a friend about aging, and you might actually kind of see yourself and your friend and your mind's eye in real time, aged.
::So it can be things that come up in conversation in real time.
::And that's a lot closer, of course, to improv.
::You can also just sit on the couch and place yourself in an environment that you know or you don't.
::The more relaxed you are, for me at least, the easier and better it seems to be.
::You know, or I might be out gardening and start kind of teaching a dance fitness class because I have my earbuds in and a song comes on and I will kind of, in my mind's eye, see a group of people in front of me, but they're actually in my garden.
::I can kind of see that in my mind.
::It's weird and it's very hard to explain.
::It's like there but not there.
::And all of this is really wired in.
::It's kind of like just feels like using a body part because it is really.
::I can remember all the way back to imagining things like this when I was in elementary school.
::You don't think it's real.
::That's the other thing to realize.
::Like I know this isn't real.
::I'm not, you know, hallucinating.
::I'm not actually seeing these things.
::I know that it's just something that I'm conjuring up mentally.
::And also hyperphantasia or heightened levels of fantasia is not all positive.
::This isn't some really cool trick.
::There are certainly drawbacks to having this, like photorealistic recall of very negative events in your life.
::Or things that you watch, like I can't watch violent realistic movies or shows or even moderately violent ones or graphic ones for this reason.
::Like the other night, I made it through about four minutes of four different movies that I tried to watch before I gave up and just went back to comedy.
::And I really wanted to watch those movies too and would have really enjoyed them if it just wasn't for those graphic elements.
::There's also issues around disassociation, distraction, overanalysis of scenarios, for making predictive assessments.
::Like some of these things are pretty good, like problem solving.
::But there's also bad elements around the distraction or just being too in your head for long periods of time of analysis.
::It's a big time waster at times.
::So in this next section, I'm going to detail what hyperphantasia is like for me in an improv sense.
::So doing scenes or doing exercises around improv, what that experience feels like.
::So I'm going to start off with probably the most basic, obvious, common sense one that you would expect, which is scene painting.
::So for example, if you wanted me to scene paint a basement, for example, I would start off by putting myself in that basement in my mind.
::And I would just describe what I see, what I feel and hear as well, perhaps.
::I don't really make it up as I go.
::In other words, I don't say a thing and then visualize or see it.
::I see those things first and then I describe them, kind of looking at them in my mind's eye.
::I don't know if most improvisers do it in that order, but I will again put myself in that room first, look around and then describe it.
::I can kind of just see the things in that room, down to a very specific detail, like as if I was really seeing it.
::And this room might be one that I've been in.
::It might be a room that I've never seen before.
::It's completely fictional.
::I haven't seen it even in a movie or visualized it before.
::It's brand new.
::But the most common one for me is kind of melding those two things together.
::Like it might be kind of a place I've possibly been or maybe even seen in a movie or something like that.
::And also kind of fictionalized.
::There's usually a lot of variation in there as well.
::Of course, if you're doing a scene or you're scene painting with other people, you're building something together.
::This is almost always the case, of course, in Improv.
::And in this case, the room will shift to be whatever that space becomes that you've all made together.
::So I will generally have a full, complete room, space, environment, character, depiction, whatever, initially, and then it will just keep changing as that new information is added to the environment.
::If something conflicts, like say I have a big table in my mind's eye in the middle of the room and then somebody says there's a rug and the room is empty in the center, that table just disappears and it immediately updates to whatever the other person has said.
::Again, I reckon that this is somewhat common, but that is how it is experienced for me with hyperphantasia.
::And that this is really happening during the scene is really the neat part of it.
::That's what I love about this, because this is all the stuff that you can use.
::It's helping you.
::You're mixing up what you actually see, what your mind sees.
::It's all changing as your scene partner does.
::And you're using all of that together.
::And I think really that focus through the changing is something that really kind of helps in a way.
::This, of course, can also be the somewhat harder part of it.
::Like, did you mention something that you saw?
::And was that thing established or is it something that your brain just added that's never been talked about before and should have been possibly?
::But then I realized at some point it just doesn't really matter.
::I used to be quite worried and concerned about that, but then I just realized it doesn't really matter.
::And I'm sure that there's some other aspects of it that make improv harder that I haven't considered yet.
::Or perhaps it's even a crutch that I'm using and some other version of memory recall might be better for some of these things.
::But who really knows?
::We're just using what we're given.
::We take these good parts.
::We acknowledge that there's often difficulties associated with them.
::And we just ultimately roll with all of it the best that we can.
::So the other aspect that's quite neat about hyperphantasia and improv is just the remembering of scenes that you've done.
::Of course, this isn't one of the important things other than really understanding and analyzing the improv that you've done to help you with future improv.
::So just like the note about remembering events that really happened in your real life, I can still place myself in certain scenes that I was in years ago.
::And I can kind of describe that environment down to the minute detail, like the time of day where the sun was in the sky and the level of humidity in the air, along with, you know, the color of the bricks on the wall in the alleyway.
::I have a lot of alleyway scenes at my head that I remember.
::I don't know why.
::Anyways, I can remember one of the very first scenes I did in Improv, the first one where Hyperphantasia really kicked in.
::It was one of those back alley scenes.
::I'm just remembering about it right now.
::And I can remember all of those elements, including what my character looked like.
::So if there is a really strong base reality, a very strong visual element built up, I'll remember that scene like I was actually in that imagined location.
::It's like a really strong or disturbing dream that you had and you were having that dream as you woke up.
::It's like that scene happened for real in your memory.
::And you can remember scenes like it actually took place for real.
::And I figure that's probably normal, maybe, for improvisers.
::It might just vary in the level of photorealism.
::And I also reckon that this is just a memory device that I lean on because it's something that I have in my real life.
::Of course, we're using the same memory.
::And it's just one of many possibilities.
::It's not the right one.
::It's not the best one.
::It's just one way of remembering information.
::Another odd aspect that I've noticed of remembering scenes with hyperphantasia, or at least the way that I do, is I most often remember the scenes as though it was shot by a camera from a different angle, like you're watching a movie.
::I'm not seeing it from the first person.
::I'm seeing it as though a camera shot it, so I can look at my character as well and see my character.
::This is something I actually do in my mind's eye all the time, to see my character, which helps me with the acting and getting into that character's persona and point of view and physicality and everything.
::And I figure that the difference between, say, hyperphantasia, what I have and other amounts of fantasia that people have is just how many visual details are present in these memories.
::And I figure a lot of the things that I remember are simply just not important or relevant.
::So in this next part, I'm going to talk about how hyperphantasia or visual processing is used in improv.
::Of course, it comes up in so many different areas of our practice, as I've already been talking about.
::Some of the areas that visual processing, visual memory, hyperphantasia affects the most are when, of course, we're setting up the base reality of a scene.
::We're setting up where it is, what that looks like, what's in the environment, what are we like as characters, because I use it as a character creation technique.
::All of those sorts of things are very important in the early stages of a scene.
::When we're dealing with emotions, especially if you have a problem connecting a word to a feeling, I find that hyperphantasia is absolutely essential for me in that regard.
::Like I've mentioned, I use hyperphantasia or visual techniques extensively when creating characters.
::I use it in memory and recall of details, visual and not visual.
::I use it for remembering names on occasion.
::I use it, and this is very rare.
::It just happens.
::I don't really use it.
::It just happens.
::For sorting out very complicated details in a scene, things can sort of materialize or appear during the scene visually in my mind's eye.
::Sometimes they disappear and change, but it actually will sometimes give me information that I can then verbally say.
::And I will cover some of these character creation memory and some of these other detail processing oriented elements in a later episode, so I can really focus on them.
::But I will continue to cover some of these basic usages in this episode, what it's like and maybe how you can strengthen some of these techniques.
::So Hyperphantasia has always been there in Improv for me and has been useful from the very beginning.
::I think that it turned up in the most strong, evident ways in scenes where perhaps they just kind of went well and I could relax.
::This might have been because of my scene partner, maybe they were much more experienced in kind of driving the scene and I could relax a little bit in it or they were adding a lot of the details or maybe it was just by chance.
::For example, some of my really early, strong visual scene memories are when I created a character visually.
::Then I would kind of more naturally, I guess, see the environment that that character was in maybe because I was already using those visual techniques by chance.
::Then as such, they sort of burn themselves into memory.
::So I could still recall them today using hyperphantasia.
::However, I probably didn't use much of the memory recall techniques that you can use hyperphantasia for within these early scenes.
::I think again, a lot of the clarity that I experienced was by accident.
::It was just sort of kicking in naturally or because of my scene partner, they were adding a lot of details.
::So I could see these things because they were describing them.
::So it is something that was there for me at the beginning and it was in use without any improv training.
::These were scenes that I did in GEMS before I had any improv instruction.
::I didn't know yes and I didn't know what denying things were.
::I didn't know how to add detail.
::I didn't know anything.
::So I had no improv training at that time.
::And these things were kicking in.
::So they don't require learning.
::They are just there.
::But there was some kind of setup that made these things stronger and work.
::So I believe that it's very useful and improv at any stage without any training.
::And as such, you can set yourself up to use this natural wiring more and more with reps and experience and training and learning.
::And so I didn't find hyperphantasia particularly useful, like really useful as a memory or as a character creation or skills tool until later on.
::I did use them to a certain extent for these things, but not really in a lot of a really conscious way, I wouldn't say.
::I didn't even realize that I could because I didn't even know how to create characters.
::I wasn't even really thinking about it.
::So I was just kind of on autopilot for those things until I actually started learning about improv.
::So those things of how to recall and kind of loosening up and relaxing.
::So you could really use hyperphantasia.
::That came along with learning, with noticing that that was even there, and then focusing on the hyperphantasia a little bit to use it more in an automated way.
::And again, being much more relaxed in a scene meant that those visual techniques could just appear and I could just kind of use them.
::So I'll get more into this creation of memory again in a future episode.
::So this is all very complicated to try to explain because we're talking about things that I can't show you and it's different between all of us.
::But I, at any rate, I found that as I got better at listening and remembering things in improv, all the hyperphantasia elements just got better.
::It got clearer.
::It was more frequent in place.
::Like the visual clarity itself was about the same.
::Like I could still see, for example, a book in the same amount of detail.
::But it was just easier to recall because you aren't focusing on all those other elements of improv that we have to remember.
::You can just think right back to that book.
::That you saw earlier and you can read the letters on the spine and remember what they looked like.
::Another thing in improv that this helps me a lot with is with emotions.
::Like I mentioned earlier.
::I'll talk about this more again in an episode about alexithymia but I also used hyperphantasia to work around the issue of applying words to emotions.
::Alexithymia is quite common amongst people with autism.
::I have some difficulty in the space and I think it sort of self-resolved almost accidentally finding hyperphantasia and flash memory.
::If there's an exercise for example where you need to apply an emotion word, you're given a word or you need to think of a word yourself or the very less common case where it's specifically endowed to you and you're not already expressing that.
::I'll figure out a place where I felt that thing or a thing I want to put into the scene.
::I'll quickly flash memory myself there and with the hyperphantasia I'll actually be there.
::I'll see everything, I'll feel it again and then I just take that feeling and go in the scene.
::Now this is not perfect and the scene, the emotions that I feel will absolutely change during the scene almost guaranteed.
::Like if I have to stay that same initial emotion through the whole scene it won't happen.
::So I won't hold that emotion very long like it's going to change when it's going to change but it seems to be enough to do the assignment.
::More on that in an episode on alexithymia.
::And just a side note out of potential interest for one or two of you out there, I actually didn't even know that emotional recall aspect was specifically part of hyperphantasia until after I was doing this in improv.
::I didn't even notice that I was doing this at all until a teacher sort of inquired why I didn't use one word to describe my emotion but instead used an entire paragraph to describe it because I never had a word.
::I just took myself to a place where I'm like, I felt really strong during this and then I just took that emotion and I had no word for it.
::So I had to describe it and they're like, well, it'd be a lot easier if you just thought of a word.
::And I'm like, you know, I can't.
::So I did this and I realized what I did.
::That's what I thought it in my head.
::Anyways, that was how I figured out what I was doing at all in improv.
::And then at some point after that, I ran into that they actually test for hyperphantasia using that specific thing around emotions.
::And then I thought, well, there's more confirmation that I probably do have this thing.
::So if you're not sure about how you might use visual processing in improv, I'll just provide some things that you can use to kind of check in with yourself and see what you're doing.
::And some of this is very similar to the tests that they do for hyperphantasia, but they're all very improv-y.
::So I think that you'll probably get it.
::Of course, the first thing you can do is just adding visuals.
::Of course, hyperphantasia tests are very improv-y.
::You're picking an object or an environment to describe.
::You will see that environment and you'll describe it.
::Now, also, I encourage you to try it the other way around.
::Describe something and then see what you see.
::Or I mean, this is just as simple as reading a book and seeing what appears in your mind.
::Can you see what the author is describing?
::Like I did an interview about hyperphantasia and the interviewer who has aphantasia asked me to essentially just scene paint a room.
::And I did a fully fictional room.
::I looked around the room, put myself in it and described it just like I do in improv.
::And that is kind of describing hyperphantasia.
::So on that note, try describing an area that you know really well already in real life.
::Not one that you're presently in, but somewhere else.
::And do a scene paint as you walk through that environment, say room to room in a building or around a community park down the street.
::Analyze what you see as you do this walk through.
::Describe it verbally and notice how much detail is there in your memory.
::Can you see everything in that environment as if you were there?
::Or what are those details like?
::Are they more shapes, et cetera?
::Just notice the level of detail that you notice.
::Now try this out, but in an area that's fictional this time.
::Try describing it as you go, saying things as you see them.
::Then flip it around and see if before you start describing it, what do you see?
::And how does each of these tasks, how does it feel to you?
::Does it feel really natural?
::Does it feel forced, etc.?
::So now in this next section, I'm going to talk a little bit about what you can do in improv scenes in this regard.
::So obviously, first of all, you can add details to that base reality.
::It's really going to set you up.
::But how are you doing that?
::What helps for me is to just pause and take a second right at the top of the scene, as opposed to just rushing in.
::It's natural to kind of rush in because you've got that adrenaline, a little bit of nerves, a little bit of anxiety going on.
::But if you just pause and take a second, notice where you're standing, notice maybe what you look like.
::Even if the scene has started, you can just take a beat and kind of think about these things, as opposed to rushing right in of mentioning things before you see them.
::So take a second to at least put yourself in an environment, even if you don't use it, even if that entire environment changes in a few lines, put yourself somewhere and see what that feels like.
::I think that works a little bit better.
::I haven't done this before and just rushed in and didn't really think about what it looks like.
::I find it a little bit better if at least you kind of have something to start with visually, again, even if it completely changes, which of course it will because your scene partner is going to immediately add things.
::They're going to respond or they're going to even initiate, and it might all change in a second.
::Of course, this is fine.
::It works.
::It's good.
::But I think there are some benefits of at least having a little bit of something to kind of ground yourself at that starting point.
::And if you can see your character as well at the very top of a scene or as soon as you're endowed, see what your character looks like.
::Take a moment.
::Treat it like it's a camera pointing at you.
::See what your character appears like.
::And this can help you so much in embodying that character.
::I find that the physicality comes in, voices come in, your body changes how you're holding it.
::And this can all help you develop that in the scene, which of course is a very important part.
::Even if you're playing someone like yourself, even if you look exactly like yourself, what do you look like today?
::Are you tired?
::Are you excited?
::Do you have your shoulders back?
::Are you hunched over?
::All of those things are very important in establishing everything at the top of the scene.
::I'll have more practical details about this, of course, in the next Hyperphantasia episode.
::But for now, visualize your character like it's a costume.
::You get all of these things for free, I find, for me at least this way.
::And I believe it's one of the most sort of forgotten elements or not communicated elements much.
::I haven't heard it communicated to me this sort of technique for character creation.
::And it's being the most important thing that I've done from day one.
::So I think that this benefit is probably one of the most useful ones of Hyperphantasia.
::Also, all of this will just get a lot better and a lot more useful when you can just let it happen.
::I tried forcing these things for a while, just for science.
::I was interested.
::I'm like, what can I do with this thing now that I realize I have it in my head?
::I wanted to see how much I could do and how much I could get for basically not free, if that makes sense.
::I tried things like forcing strings of numbers and I would like spray paint them against the sky if there was a sky in my mind's eye or a wall or whatever.
::And it worked.
::I mean, it technically worked.
::I could force the images there and I could remember long strings of numbers to do a callback, but it wasn't very long lasting in this case.
::And it just felt kind of gimmicky and annoying.
::And it was rarely useful.
::And I also didn't really enjoy it.
::It took the fun out of it too.
::So my recommendation now, if you get into this, is not to force it.
::Just try to notice it.
::And advancing your other skills in improv seemed to let you notice these things better and more often.
::And setting yourself up at the top of the scene just with strong visuals, which you're probably doing anyways, helps with all of this as well.
::And then you just don't need to force anything.
::So then when I did let things just sort of happen and flow, things then in hyperphantasia seemed to happen that were particularly useful.
::For example, for one scene, I had someone's name show up like behind them in this weird yellow gothic font letter, sort of behind them like titling in a movie.
::And that was very memorable and easy to recall.
::So I could remember their name in a scene.
::And I had some one point, it was really weird.
::I had like this grid of information that sort of arranged itself on a wall in a way.
::Like I wanted to say something and I couldn't really figure out this weird grouping.
::And so all the groupings appeared on the wall and then I could just read them out.
::And none of this was me doing it.
::Like I didn't do this.
::It just happened through hyperphantasia.
::So I don't know why or how.
::But it seemed to be related to just, you know, flowing with it and letting things happen as they are and just being relaxed and just going with it.
::So on that note, can you make yourself better at improv using this thing?
::And one of the really important things to remember about this is this is just your wiring.
::It's something that just shows up in brain scans.
::This isn't an impairment if you don't have a strong visual imagination.
::Everybody is just doing improv differently using the particular tools for recall and seeing the environment in different ways.
::As such, I don't really feel that anything I've described about visual processing in this episode is specifically trainable.
::Like you can't get better at this thing at whatever spot on the spectrum that you are.
::It's just all automatic, like a reflex, as far as I can tell.
::Like the thing that I was talking about about forcing that would be me trying to get better at this particular cognitive thing.
::And all I've noticed so far is just getting better at improv skills helps me just let it do what it already does.
::So it feels like it's getting better, but I don't think it is.
::I think it's no change.
::The only change is in the improv skills around it.
::And of course, you can focus like I'm going to add some more details about what I already see to the scene to help me just visually see everything a little bit better or clear, but it's not really changing the hyperphantasia at all, it's just improving your improv.
::So on that note, I do believe that being aware of hyperphantasia helps you notice it and notice how you are functioning in the scene better.
::And that helps you just use it, just being aware of it helped me.
::And then your improv skills around the hyperphantasia itself will change.
::And then everything together feels a little bit faster and easier or maybe better.
::So you can set yourself up and you can set the scene up for a bit more success, just being knowledgeable of your visual processing, your skills around the hyperphantasia around it change.
::And this is kind of how all of neurodivergence kind of seems to be, because it's our wiring and it's what we're doing around our wiring that makes the difference.
::Because there's just so many darn variables involved in this, aren't there?
::So this episode is yet another example of I could be completely wildly inaccurate.
::And I haven't heard most of the stuff described by anyone and that I haven't heard anyone specifically mention hyperphantasia or aphantasia.
::This just happens to be my analysis of how I do things.
::And describing visuals and seeing them is something most of us do all the time.
::So you all probably do a lot of this already.
::But I hope something in this episode will be useful to you or someone else or someone you teach or coach perhaps.
::And I've run a few exercises in my classes that seem to resonate in this particular space.
::And I will describe them in the next episode on this topic.
::I know I've said that a lot.
::Maybe some of these ideas will give you some things to try in your own practice.
::And from that, you'll find out something completely new and different than all of this that will work for you specifically.
::And that's what we're after.
::You'll discover more about the way your unique and wonderful brain works in improv.
::And that might be kind of neat.
::So I didn't want this episode to be this long, but here we are.
::And it is.
::So I will keep the plugs and the M bit quick.
::I'm going to have a random observation this week from my Neurodiversity friends out there after the plugs.
::But first, the plugs.
::Let's check out World's Greatest Improv School for great classes and improv at all levels, including many very unique advanced workshops in person and online.
::Many of the classes are online, so you can take them from anywhere and you can take those skills back to your home theaters if you want.
::wgimprovschool.com.
::I also have a site dedicated to online improv, podcasts and live streams.
::This one's my site, flatimprov.com.
::You can find that in the newsletter that I put out every second week.
::Again, flatimprov.com.
::And this podcast is at Substack and has a weekly newsletter attached to it.
::So you can get that if you want as well.
::You can subscribe to that and learn more about how to get your voice on this podcast as well at flatimprov.com/substack.
::Thank you for listening.
::And hey, I've got a random observation for the weirdos out there.
::If you're not neurodivergent, you don't got to listen to this.
::This is a new bit I'm adding for the weirdos or I guess any of you who are not sick of my voice yet.
::This is just a random thought that seems kind of weird.
::So how many of you out there stim music like listening to the same song over and over and over again and you find that like nice and relaxing or good in some way?
::I do and with the right songs, only some songs and I love like the loop, the repeat button with a little number one on it.
::Like I love it and I've been like listening to this one song by an indie artist and I don't know, I've probably listened to this song like I don't know, 800 times in the past couple of weeks, like a lot of times, too many times.
::I wonder because this is a very small time indie artist, like I always wonder do they notice like a stats bump on that one song?
::And like how big do does the artist have to be to not notice a weird stat on one song that you've like looped 876 times or whatever over the past couple of weeks?
::Or does like Spotify somehow like negate that as spam and like doesn't count the numbers?
::Like that seems like a good description.
::I'm self-spamming myself with this song.
::All right.
::Anyways, this got really weird.
::That's all.
::See you next week and now we're done.
