iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

When I read books, I don't automatically: mentally picture the characters imagine fictional settings visualize entire scenes hear the dialogue in voices build a mental map of where things are I'm don't do any of these, because I'm unable to. I have global #aphantasia.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I’m neurodivergent, but not in the way people typically think of neurodivergence. I have global aphantasia. I completely lack mental image visualization. I have no inner voice, no auditory imagery or replay, and no mental spatial mapping. My brain works differently than more than 99% of people.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Fall color in the Colorado mountains. Bright yellow aspen tree leaves.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Hillsides of yellow aspen trees and with evergreens on Cumbres Pass in southern Colorado. Train tracks of Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad are visible on lower right. I took this photo yesterday.

Mountains with yellow aspens trees. Peak fall color.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Fall color, yellow aspens, on Cumbres Pass in southern Colorado, near New Mexico. I took this photo yesterday.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Hermia, my small, fluffy kitty on a cat tower. She's intently watching a wand toy which I'm holding just out of the photo. #Caturday

Long-haired gray tabby cat with green eyes. Her eyes are focused on a wand toy.

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Reposted by Amy Peterson

Richard Kadrey @richardkadrey.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The cat bed I got Aces for his birthday vs the dirty towel I dropped on the floor

Aces lying on the floor next to the new cat bed

Aces relaxing on a dirty towel I dropped on the floor

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Reposted by Amy Peterson

The Denver Post @denverpost.com · 19/09/2026

St. Mary’s Glacier is gone. Colorado’s ongoing drought and record-hot summer, which scientists attribute to global warming, caused the snowfield to completely melt for the first time in at least 100 years.

denverpost.com

St. Mary’s Glacier melted away. Will Colorado’s iconic snowfield ever return?

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Hermia playing with an orange catnip toy in large plastic storage box. #Caturday

Longhaired gray tabby cat with green eyes

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Spatial mapping is a hidden cognitive sense which most people assume everyone has. It's an innate skill used without conscious effort. ~85–90% of people have functional mental spatial mapping ~10–15% have weak or inconsistent spatial mapping ~1–3% have essentially no mental spatial mapping

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A majority of people automatically generate mental images along with their conscious thoughts. Their brain just does it. Mental visualization is a cognitive ability, but not a universal or consistent one. The level of ability varies from ultra‑vivid (#hyperphantasia) to non‑existent (#aphantasia).

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Hermia, my small gray longhaired cat relaxing in a cardboard box. #Caturday

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Colorful snapdragons in my garden area in the backyard. I'm happy that they are thriving and blooming.

yellow, pink, orange, and red blooming snapdragon flowers

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Hermia, my young, longhaired cat showing off her impressive tail. #Caturday

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Photo of a Durango and Silverton Railroad narrow gauge train soon after its arrival in Silverton, Colorado. Passengers are getting off the train and walking into town. I took this photo on August 7.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Cute chipmunk at Treasure Falls parking lot, about 15 miles northeast of Pagosa Springs along US 160, in southwest Colorado. I took this photo on August 13.

Small chipmunk with stripes down its back

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

For me, as a reader with global aphantasia: Reading = extracting story and meaning Characters = conceptual entities, not visual players Scenes = relationships, not spatial mapping Emotions = inferred from context, not mentally vivid Story comprehension = rooted in semantics rather than imagery

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I am neurodivergent, but not in the way most people define neurodivergence. I have global aphantasia. I have no mental visual or auditory imagery, no inner voice, no music replay, and no tactile, spatial, or sensory visualization. Fewer than 0.5% of people experience this condition.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Remember the vintage arcade game Asteroids? I absolutely sucked at it. It's the perfect storm for someone like me with global aphantasia. It demands continuous spatial awareness, tracking multiple moving objects, predicting movement vectors. My brain simply does none of those things internally.

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Reposted by Amy Peterson

Matt @mattlibrarian.eurosky.social · 09/07/2026

Heads up! Just seen a new book banning tool called BookLens promoted by 'Citizens for Decency' it can scan an ISBN and provide a precis showing how deviant & porn-filled books are The 'content breakdowns' are powered by ChatGPT. 📚📜

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Yesterday Jackie and I planned to meet at a Starbucks for writing. When I arrived at the location, the drive-thru was blocked with traffic cones and there was a sign on the door saying the store was temporarily closed. Maintenance work was apparently being done to the building exterior or the roof.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Last night I watched the movie Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise movie, dubbed in Spanish on UniMás. I'm working on improving my Spanish. Even though I’d never seen the movie before, with the video plus the Spanish audio and Spanish captions, I was able to follow the story surprisingly well.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Hermia, my young, longhaired cat. She is growing increasingly fluffy. #Caturday

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

At dinner party, I mentioned that I have aphantasia. When I suddenly said "blue box!", everyone else instantly pictured some sort of blue box in their minds. I didn't. I only had the idea, the concept, of a box that is blue.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

I read books, but not in the way most people do. I can’t mentally visualize anything I'm reading because I have aphantasia. I don’t picture scenes layouts or characters descriptions in my mind at all. But I can, and do, read books for story structure, cause and effect, and character motivation.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

This indie fantasy novel I'm reading is readable, and its three POV characters are interesting. But the story so far is failing to build any real tension. I sense the overarching framework is lacking something, or the author hasn't conveyed the stakes well enough. This likely a first novel problem?

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

I’m reading an indie fantasy book where a character can conjure physical daggers by picturing them in his mind. This magic system stood out for me because I have aphantasia. I can't mentally picture anything. The idea of making mental images real is interesting but strange from my perspective.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Hermia checking out a blue hair tie. She thinks it might be a cat toy.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

If someone considers the leader of a country to in some way personify the country itself, then capturing and removing that leader feels to them like “taking over” the country. It’s not how sovereignty works in reality, but it is how certain authoritarian worldviews see things.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Hermia, my recent feline adoptee, has discovered the existing cat furniture.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

New on Fantastic Reviews Blog: Jackie's Book Tasting of The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst, which is a cozy fantasy. In a Book Tasting, we read only the opening 25 pages of a book and then we write a summary and thoughts on what we read. fantasticreviews.blogspot.com/2026/05/book...

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Romantasy is a romance novel wearing fantasy novel clothes. If you pull out the romance elements and the plot falls apart, it’s romantasy, instead of fantasy.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

New on Fantastic Reviews Blog: Jackie’s Book Tasting of The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst, a cozy fantasy. In a Book Tasting, we read only the opening 25 pages and then we write a thoughtful description of what we found there. fantasticreviews.blogspot.com/2026/05/book...

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Announcing my new feline adoptee. She is a 10-month-old, gray tabby, domestic longhair cat. I named her Hermia, after a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Current view of some trees in my backyard. Hoping there's no broken branches due to this May snowstorm.

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Reposted by Amy Peterson

Forever Louise Brooks @foreverlouiseb1.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Alice Faye by Gene Kornman, 1936. #botd

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

It's looking wintry outside. I took this photo of flying snow with trees and a streetlight through an upstairs window.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

In the 1968 science fiction novel I’m currently reading, the protagonist describes his former girlfriend as “nubile.” That’s a word I see infrequently nowadays. The word has acquired a dated, slightly creepy, male‑gaze meaning today.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Next up on my reading stack is The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert. It's a 1968 science fiction book by the author of Dune. Unlike Dune, it's more psychological and sociological science fiction than epic space opera. I've heard it's good, but I know almost nothing about it.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

I completed reading book 4 of Brian Stableford's 1970s Hooded Swan series, The Paradise Game. It was good. Next, I plan to read book 3, Promised Land. I read the books out of order. Fortunately for me, this series is not tightly linked. I found out I didn't own book 3, so I bought a copy on eBay.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I'm reading The Paradise Game, by Brian M. Stableford, part of the Hooded Swan series. I'm currently on page 96 of 158. It's a 1974 DAW yellow spine paperback which is neither woke or overtly sexist. It's a science fiction adventure book for grownups set on an Earth-like exoplanet.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I realized that I somehow managed to start reading book 4 in the 1970s Hooded Swan series before reading book 3. Oops. Thankfully this science fiction series by Brian Stableford is loosely linked standalones, so reading them out of order shouldn't cause me major continuity issues.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

I'm reading The Paradise Game, by Brian M. Stableford, part of the Hooded Swan series. I'm currently on page 60 of 158. It's a 1974 DAW yellow spine paperback. It's a science fiction book set on what seems to be an Earth-like exoplanet.

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

I'm currently reading The Paradise Game, by Brian M. Stableford. It's a science fiction book. I'm on page 39 of 158. It's a 1974 DAW yellow spine paperback. What are you reading?

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Reposted by Amy Peterson

Shipwreck @shipwreck75.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

There does not appear to be a formal written document for the ceasefire agreement.-CNN

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Amy Peterson @amymariska.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I have aphantasia, I've always had aphantasia. When I was younger and told to ‘imagine myself on a beach, etc.’ for a relaxation exercise, the instructions prompted nothing in me. No mental impression of a beach whatsoever. I’d just be bored, waiting for what I saw as a pointless exercise to end.

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