Imagine an apple

What’s the detail of the inner experience of meditating? What do you see while body scanning? How does noticing more details of inner experience alter your beliefs about your mind?Welcome to another episode of “Imagine an apple”!Today, Vynn and Francis chat with meditator Jess (also known as Frideswyth on Twitter) about the granular detail of her attention and visual imagery while meditating.Timestamps:02:07 Why Jess started meditating08:24 Body scanning17:28 Visual imagery while body scanning22:28 Imagery and inner voice every day25:16 Horror movies29:36 Phenomenology of emotion32:13 Changes due to meditation36:19 Koaning40:34 "First awakening"49:09 Thinking nothing53:15 Meditation is phenomenology55:04 Each aspect of mind is already missing in someoneShow Links: The Power of Now - by Eckhart Tolle Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha - by Daniel Ingram Liberalis Events - for more about JessCamp Tales For The New Future - Jess’ blog @frideswyth  - Jess’ TwitterContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

What is it like to experience “open awareness”? What’s the difference between doing and non-doing? What is “thinking”?Welcome to another episode of “Imagine an apple”.In this episode, Vynn and Francis talk with Michael Ashcroft about what it is like to do Alexander Technique, an awareness-based skill which he teaches.Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusTimestamps:01:00 Michael’s introduction to Alexander Technique03:00 The origins of Alexander Technique05:32 Internal Awareness05:40 Michael Imagines an Apple!06:44 How does AT make people aware of their awareness?08:01 Coming back to the world09:15 Being in the world11:06 Attention in the world12:10 Flow states14:25 Non-doing17:39 Habitual responding and not responding19:29 Actively not doing vs just not doing20:28 Mind and body are one process—Bodymind23:20 Inhibition24:26 Practice26:20 Feeling “it” for the first time27:31 Letting go of control28:42 Meditation and Alexander Technique34:15 Exercises in Alexander Technique37:34 Thinking39:54 What do you mean by thinking?41:52 Conceptual thinking and subconscious thinking43:10 Conscious cognition and nonconscious cognition44:20 Parallel processing45:44 Thoughts, feelings, IFS parts47:14 AT mode 24/750:30 Technology and contracted awareness52:15 Wrapping up54:28 Tips about Alexander Technique55:52 Francis’ experience of ATLinks: South Bank Alexander Centre - school Michael first went to ”Unthought” - book by N Katherine Hayles Expanding Awareness - Michael’s Alexander Technique site Fundamentals of Alexander Technique - Michael’s beginner course Michael’s YouTube channel @m_ashcroft on Twitter Michael Ashcroft - personal websiteTheme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

How does Hurlburt’s method of sampling what is happening in our minds work? What have we learnt from it about the variety of our everyday inner worlds - from thinking without symbols, to schizophrenia, to guitar playing?Welcome to another episode of “Imagine an apple”!Today, Vynn interviews Francis about his new favourite book “Investigating Pristine Inner Experience”. The book describes Russell Hurlburt’s “Descriptive Experience Sampling” method, and what we’ve learnt from it.Timestamps:00:53 Why Francis likes the book02:55 Hurlburt and his method09:34 Scepticism13:58 Unsymbolized thinking18:22 Sampling yourself25:59 Variety of inner experience30:30 Schizophrenia, emotion39:38 Benefits, guitar playing48:10 SonderShow Links: Investigating Pristine Inner Experience: Moments of Truth - book by Russell T. Hurlburt Descriptive Experience Sampling Codebook - Russell T. Hurlburt and Christopher L. Heavey My mind sampling results - Francis’ blog RussHurlburt’s YouTube Channel - Recordings of DES sessions Inner Experience in Bulimia, Fragmented Experience in Bulimia - papers by Hurlburt Sampling normal and schizophrenic inner experience - book by Hurlburt Sonder - definition in the Dictionary of Obscure SorrowsContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

When you navigate a city, what is your inner experience? Do you see detailed overhead maps, or street-level views of landmarks, or neither?Vynn Suren and Francis Irving interview Anna about how she uses her imagination to find routes, program a computer and remember names.Anna describes how she sees both an overhead map view and street-level views of landmarks. She switches between them dynamically.What’s a visual map vs a spatial map? What features are salient? What is a waypoint? How do the imagined maps vary in quality between different cities? What does the marker look like that shows where you are? There’s then a discussion about how people work out the route to take on the map, and what happens when they get lost. What’s the inner experience of being lost? How do you find yourself again?The conversation switches to use of imagination while computer programming. Anna describes the abstract concepts she sees in a spatial structure. What then happens  when you’re interrupted? Does this apply to other tasks, e.g. getting quotes for insurance?To wrap up, the team talk about names and faces and how well people remember them. If you visualise writing is it serif or sans-serif, is it white or grey?Timestamps:00:55 Imagine an apple02:17 Inner background music05:00 Navigating a city08:26 Spatial vs visual11:07 Finding the best route20:17 Typical waypoints22:49 Sense of direction26:33 Getting lost30:18 Variety of experience while navigating34:08 Imagination while computer programming38:56 Interruptions41:02 Smoky grey shapes of thinking44:35 Inner experience during collaborative tasks46:29 Remembering names and facesShow Links: This isn’t f***ing Dalston! - mapping the cognitive boundaries of part of London The Image of the City - book about how people make mental maps Mind’s Eye Mentorship - 1:1 coaching, used to be called AphantasiaMeow Guugu Yimithirr language - uses north/south where English uses left/right Country Driving by Peter Hessler - getting lost in rural China Statistics of mental imagery by Francis Galton - either this, or William James referencing it, mentions the smokey grey shapes 1946 birth cohort study - NHS research projectContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

Welcome to another episode of “Imagine an apple”!In this episode, we tackle the issue of spiritual experience.How do these vary between individuals, and how do they vary between human cultures?Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusTimestamps:01:40 What are spiritual experiences?03:30 Oneness with the Universe05:30 Nondual experience with Vynn08:20 Rejection from life goals triggering nondual experience09:30 Jessica’s move to Madrid and starting new job10:49 Lucid dreaming14:01 Hearing voices19:20 Changing perceptions of reality20:15 Scales of enlightenment experience21:00 What were you reading?22:02 Alan Watts and Buddhist Koans23:30 Effing the ineffable25:28 “I am God!”27:27 The experience of love30:15 How do you live day to day?34:26 Psychedelics35:35 Sense of self38:15 Research on spiritual experience41:15 Neurophenomenology43:00 Mental health disorders associated with spiritual experiences44:05 Vocabulary around mental experience45:00 EPRC Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium45:50 Kundalini Awakenings48:40 Wrapping up49:00 Can you recognize another?Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

What are the limits of our imagination? Can we imagine an apple 100 miles away, or a sound higher pitched that we can hear? Can we project our imaginations into our actual vision?Vynn and Francis are interviewed by video games designer Berbank Green. He stretches our imagination with a series of exercises (see full list below).Can you imagine a smell that knocks you out? Can you imagine an apple as large as the moon? How accurate are our imaginations?Berbank describes his “prophantasic” ability to put an imagined apple on the actual table in his real vision, and how he used this in childhood.Timestamps:00:48 Detail of imagining an apple05:10 Imagining a distant apple09:00 An eagle’s perception11:18 Microscopic and earth-sized apples16:13 Thinking of lots of apples at once19:30 4D apples23:48 Inner experience of designing a video game27:07 Imagining emotions in video games30:35 Limits of audio imagination35:17 Prophantasia - imagining things in the real world40:10 Imagining being something else51:40 Noticing where language comes from57:23 Dreaming and the subconscious64:02 Apple having an eccentric British accentShow Links: Teach Your Monster to Read - a video game Berbank made Berbank’s Twitter account Miegakure - a true 4D puzzle-platforming game Fire Kasina with Jane Flowers - earlier episode of this podcast Consider Phlebas - novel with mind fragmentingBerbank’s Imagination Exercises:Imagine an apple- what does it look like?- where is it?- can you smell it?- taste it?- feel how heavy it is?- does it make you remember anything?OK now test limits:- Can you see the apple if it's behind you?- How far away can you make the apple before you can't see it?   - What is your perspective of the apple at this distance?- How small can you imagine that apple?   - What happens when it gets too small?   - How heavy is that?   - Can you make it lighter?   - Can you feel how light your max imagination is?- How large can you imagine it?   - What happens when it gets too large?   - How heavy is that?   - Can you make it heavier?   - Can you feel how heavy your max imagination is?- How many apples can you think of at once?- How powerful can you make the smell of the apple?   - Can you imagine it to the point where it's overwhelming?- Can you imagine a 4 dimensional apple?- Can you imagine an apple that has a face?   - That's actually in front of you?   - That's floating in front of you with sparkling effects and crackling lightning?   - That's talking to you in an eccentric British accent?etc. etcContact Details:Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] by: @MJPiercello

What is the experience of imagining a gremlin on someone’s shoulder? How do people imagine music, sounds, time and emotion? How is imagination used to find keys and remember names?Vynn and Francis chat with Ronja about her imagination, covering a wide range of topics that may inspire you to ask your own friends and family what happens in their minds.As someone mostly aphantasic, Francis quizzes Ronja about how she imagines a gremlin on a friend’s shoulder. How solid is it? Does it rotate with the world? Is it alive, and to what extent is it under conscious control?The conversations continues on the topics of imagining emotion, smell and music. Then it gets practical, discussing how imagination can be used to find things lost in your house, navigate to a destination and assemble furniture.What are different ways people remember names, and what techniques can improve that? How do people imagine while watching movies and reading books, and what is it like to imagine emotions?Timestamps:00:48 Gremlin on your shoulder04:27 Aliveness of the gremlin05:43 Emotion, smell and sound07:07 Imagining music10:20 Sounds and memories13:40 Harry Potter15:10 Looking for keys19:13 Phantasia coaching21:27 Shape rotating23:42 Navigation28:02 Names and faces34:14 Visualising time39:15 Emotion, books, movies46:16 Imagine an appleShow Links: SET by PlayMonster - pattern matching card game Mind’s Eye Mentorship - formerly called AphantasiaMeow Mind’s Eye Courses - also by AphantasiaMeow Visualisations of calendars - Twitter thread Manar’s Twitter account - the gremlin was on his shoulderContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

What is it like to have intrusively strong romantic feelings? What are the causes, and what techniques can improve it?Vynn and Francis interview life coach Michelle Akin about what it is like to experience limerence. This is a common, yet not talked about, obsessive love addiction which can repeatedly break relationships.What is the difference between limerence and love? How do limerent people behave with their object of desire? What does it feel like inside their body?The conversation goes into the possible causes of limerence, both innate and relating to attachment in childhood. Michelle describes different methods of therapy and group programmes that can help with it.How do people visualise the object of their limerence? What is the impact of attending to negative traits of the object of limerence on bodily feelings of despair?To finish, Michelle describes how many people messaged her directly when she posted on social media about limerence, and advice she gave them.Timestamps:01:15 What does limerence feel like?02:45 Is it a physical experience?03:22 Sex and Love Addicts05:57 The commonness of limerence 07:44 Dorothy Tennov the coiner of limerence11:00 The difference between limerence and love13:56 Is limerence a type of crush17:17 Anxiety in limerence18:21 What causes limerence?21:56 Vibrational Harmonic Healing22:30 Limerence therapy specialist26:20 Limerent connection as healing the father wound28:10 New friendships28:27 Visualising the objects of limerence32:10 How to handle limerence34:16 Number of people being impacted by limerenceShow Links: Limerence: What Is It And How Do We Let It Go? - video by Heidi Priebe Michelle’s AMA about limerence Michelle’s Twitter account Inconvenient Epiphanies - Michelle’s substack Dorothy Tennov - Coiner of LimerenceContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

How can you use fire kasina meditation to develop hyperreal imagery? How does this differ from mind’s eye imagination?Vynn and Francis interview fashion designer Jane Flowers, who has developed a hyperphantasic ability using fire kasina meditation.Jane describes how she developed imagery while doing fire kasina meditation. She talks about the progress from seeing visual snow, to the brain pattern matching it as 3D, to forming plants and rich, controlled shapes. She describes ways to prepare your mind and body for these visualisations.The difference between Jane’s kasina visualisations and normal mind’s eye visualisations is explored in detail, including tactile sensation and comparison to reporting on psychedelics.Prophantasia / hyperphantasiaTimestamps:00:36 Mask illusion02:41 Meditation imagery05:16 2D to 3D08:11 Kasina visualisations11:20 Charging up13:29 Phases of forming visualisations16:00 Comparison to mind’s eye21:59 Temperature23:37 Therapeutic benefits, psychedelics28:03 Implications for reality32:47 Comparison to prophantasiaShow Links: Why Are Transgender People Immune To Optical Illusions? - mask illusion blog post by Slate Star Codex Kasina Practice, Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha - instructions in book by Daniel Ingram Commentary on the Vimuttimagga - canon sources on fire kasina visualisations Fire Kasina website Jane’s Twitter accountContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

How does the inner mental experience of autistic people vary? What is our day to day experience that creates stress or tension? Can we skillfully reduce it?Vynn and Francis interview philosopher and neuroscientist Michael Johnson. Michael founded the Qualia Research Institute, and wrote the book Principia Qualia about consciousness.The conversation begins with the inner experience of autistic people. How does a denser, more connected neural network lead to more variety of experience?Then it goes through Michael’s theory of vasocomputation in detail. This relates to the Buddhist concept of “tanha” (grasping) and how it relates to stress and tension.Do we control the world too much, or in ways that make no sense? What is the experience of doing this, and how can we use techniques like meditation to change this?Timestamps:00:46 Autism and neuron connectivity07:44 Autism and inner experience10:03 Meditation11:34 Vasocomputation13:27 Free energy and active inference17:18 Buddhist concept of Tanha (grasping)23:10 Three unskillful active inferences25:36 Skillful active inference27:40 Pain and pleasure 28:37 QualiaShow Links: Autism as a disorder of dimensionality - article by Michael Johnson Principles of Vasocomputation: A Unification of Buddhist Phenomenology, Active Inference, and Physical Reflex (Part I) - article by Michael Johnson Michael Johnson’s Twitter account Michael Johnson’s websiteContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

What do musicians see in their mind’s eyes and ears while playing? How do they use that to create the impact of the music on the audience?Vynn and Francis interview professional cellist Matthew Pierce who is aphantasic - he has no visual imagination. He uses his audio, spatial, emotional and bodily imagination to perform music.Matthew goes into detail about learning to play an instrument, using different kinds of imagination to train the subconscious to control the body while playing.How does the body move while playing a cello and a piano? Where do you need to visually pay attention while in an orchestra? What are they different layers of habit that are built up while learning an instrument?To finish, there’s a discussion about a lack of visual imagination making it harder to do paperwork.After this interview, Matthew composed, performed and recorded the intro and outro music for “Imagine an Apple”. Thanks Matthew, it’s very much appreciated! Check out his other musical work in the links below.Timestamps:01:33 Inner audio experience04:16 Spatial imagination05:56 Teaching playing an instrument09:40 Body position while playing cello11:09 Imagining what you want to play15:11 Difference with visual imagination16:19 Places you look while playing in orchestra18:35 Reading music as sound vs notation23:21 Musical keys, embodiment of playing30:52 Imagining audio of an orchestral piece36:15 Imagining emotions of audience41:50 Different kinds of mind’s eyes44:39 Paperwork when aphantasic50:02 Vynn and Francis chat about the episodeShow Links: Piercello’s Progress - Matthew’s email newsletter on Substack Matthew’s Twitter account Matthew’s YouTube channel Prelude from J. S. Bach's Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied CelloContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

How has emotion changed over history, and in different cultures? How do people experience emotion - in the body, cognitively, as concepts, as colours?Vynn and Francis discuss how different people, including themselves individually, experience emotion.The conversation leads into the practical question of how it is best to experience emotion, and how that happens socially and in combination with rational thought.This episode is a follow-up companion episode to the interview with philosopher Tom Cochrane about emotion in the previous episode.Timestamps:00:46 Experiments about emotions03:30 History of emotion08:51 Emotion in different cultures10:52 Experiencing emotions in different ways15:38 Cause of bodily feeling of sensations18:57 Vynn's experience of emotion22:29 Francis' experience of emotion25:09 Desirability of feeling emotion in body more28:12 Social reality of emotions32:51 Emotional-rational complexes, practical tipsShow Links: “The Emotional Mind: A Control Theory of Affective States” - book by Tom Cochrane How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain - book by Lisa Feldman Barrett Critiques of Paul Ekman’s theory of facial expression of emotions - The Atlantic Professor Thomas Dixon’s research into history of emotion - website This kind of rosy yellow glow in my head - blog post introduction to Hurlburt Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears - book by Thomas DixonContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

What is emotion? How’s it different from feelings? How do different people experience it?Vynn and Francis interview philosopher Tom Cochrane, author of “The Emotional Mind: A Control Theory of Affective States”, about emotion.They unpick the sometimes confusing academic words on this topic, such as affect and valence.How does the way the brain is a prediction machine relate to emotion? Are emotions social? What is the impact of different clothes, locations or music on emotion? What is the state of scientific experiments about emotion?This episode has a follow-up companion episode, where Vynn and Francis talk more widely about our varying experience of emotion.Timestamps:00:42 Definitions - emotion, feelings, affect, valence09:24 Meditation used to increase attention11:21 Valent (positive/negative) representation17:30 Predictive processing20:03 Emotions!26:08 Social emotions29:38 Varying experience of emotion - bodily, cognitive, colours33:55 Expressing emotion with clothes, music, writing36:16 Science behind emotions - experimentsShow Links: “The Emotional Mind: A Control Theory of Affective States” - book by Tom Cochrane “Your brain doesn’t detect reality. It creates it” - video with Lisa Feldman Barrett “The Emotional Power of Music” - book by Tom Cochrane “A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis” - Nature Human Behaviour Tom Cochrane on Twitter - @doctorcochrane Tom’s Website - All WritingsContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcusEmail: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello

Welcome to "Imagine an apple"! A podcast about our different inner mental worlds.In this introductory episode, Vynn Suren and Francis Irving discuss differences in how they do (or don't) imagine, and how they got interested in this topic.What are the differences between what it is like inside our minds? From imagining an apple, to imagining in a dream - even imagined smell and proprioception.How do these vary between individuals, and how do they vary between human cultures?Timestamps:00:20 Why Vynn and Francis are interested in inner experience02:42 The "Imagine an apple" test08:33 Dream imagery12:17 Imagery of the past and the future14:26 Smell and other senses16:00 Proprioception22:27 Variety between individuals27:35 Bornean shamans and prophantasia37:57 Socialisation of inner realities42:10 SummaryShow Links: "Think of an Apple in Your Head" Meme Lucid Dreaming “Hands” Reality Check Bobohizan How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others - T. M. LuhrmannContact Details:Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcus Email: [email protected] written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello