A List of Introspective Descriptions

This is a living blog post. I will keep adding links to the list as I write new introspective descriptions or find good ones by others.

The way you experience reality and life inside your head differs more than you would think from the way the next person experiences it. We should think and talk more about this very important truth.

I had to live more than thirty-five years and go through an existential epiphany about my own brain before I learned to do any kind of introspection. Prior to learning about my aphantasia (the total lack of mental images), I never even considered the quality of my consciousness. The idea that consciousness could vary substantially from person to person simply didn't cross my mind. The way I felt seemed obvious to the point of transparency.

But my experience is, of course, different from others in many ways. Everyone else, too, seems to be unique in their combination of inner experiences. I'm talking not only about well-known spectra like autism and ADHD, but also traits like synesthesia (the mixing of senses), savant tendencies, different abilities with and approaches to words and numbers, and many other more-or-less-studied variations.

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