iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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

What you're describing fits semantic-pattern recognition, which makes sense with aphantasia. You only recognize the correct letter pattern when the entire word is typed out and you see it with your own eyes.

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

When I read books, I never visualize the characters or the scenes. I simply read the written words and construct the story from their meaning because I have global aphantasia. If I could mentally generate a mental mini movie whenever reading a book, which I cannot do, I would definitely read more.

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

Hermia doing a stretch on the upstairs railing. I wish she wouldn't climb up on this railing, but cats are cats. #Caturday

Gray tabby long-hair cat in a stretch with her paws in front of her.

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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 have vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. But I cannot recreate or re‑experience any of those senses mentally. I have no mental images, no inner voice, no auditory replay, and no internal spatial mapping. My mind only receives sensory‑like input in real time.

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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

Remember the scene in Star Wars where Luke deflects the training remote’s shots with a lightsaber while he can’t see it? He’s relying on a sense of non‑visual spatial awareness, predictive motion‑tracking, and rotational mapping. That’s a pretty good description of mental spatial mapping.

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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

1955 book cover, not magazine, from Galaxy Publishing which also published science fiction magazines

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

I’m a decent proofreader. I don’t visualize what I’m reading. I read written words.

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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

Most players experienced the arcade game Asteroids as fast. I, with global aphantasia, experienced it as relentless cognitive overload. Stressful. The game felt chaotic for me, and I crashed constantly.

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

Playing Asteroids with my global aphantasia meant trying to play a spatial mapping game without the mental ability to do spatial mapping. I crashed constantly. My brain simply does not mentally generate spatial maps, which are one of the core components of mental visualization.

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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

It wasn't a big inconvenience for us that this Starbucks location was temporary closed, just an unexpected switch in plans. As this was in suburbia, there is another Starbucks not that far away, plus other coffee shops in the area. We ended up going to Black Rock Coffee.

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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

By the way, I took years of Spanish classes in high school. But that was years ago.

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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

From that “blue box!” moment, people with partial aphantasia or low imagery might mentally see a dim, unstable, or incomplete box, or maybe just a smudge of blue. For me, there’s no box at all. I only get the words, the idea, the concept of a box that is blue.

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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

We've found that reading the opening 25 pages of a book can tell you a lot about a book. Those pages build the stage for a story. They usually contain something intended to catch your interest, or at least your attention. It’s enough pages to provide a good sample of the author’s writing style.

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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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