Somatization.

[AG31]

A week or two ago I was thinking a lot about the focus of description, how some authors describe to create a setting, and some others describe to evoke the MC’s internal experience. I made a post about that. I was also thinking about how my own writing style focuses on the MC’s somatic experience. I thought I’d made a post about that, but can’t find it.

Both of these trains of thought were prompted by a bit of description in @ElectricBlue’s Emma and Bobbie, Reprise (but, as he’s done before, ElectricBlue quite muddied up my categories, because the focused description in question came from the narrator, not the MC. A tangle to be tackled later.) Here it is: “their steady pounding feet in synch on the gravel.” That’s all we know about their setting except that it was “a long driveway.”

Anyway, this morning it came to me that I was so taken by that bit of description not only because it crystallized the narrator’s experience, but because it was somatic. It was vivid for me because I could mentally feel the stones pressing through the sole of my ballerina slippers, and crunching together.

It gave me a new understanding of why I’m so interested in the somatic experiences of my main characters. I have both visual and audial aphantasia. I don’t know much about somatic processing of information, but I’ve frequently said that I know when I’m in or out of tune, when playing the flute, by how it feels. I can feel my way to good intonation, but when it’s bad I don’t know whether I’m flat or sharp. When I remember my babies, it’s how it felt to hold them and blow raspberries on their tummies and kiss the little beating soft spots on their heads.

Does this resonate with anyone? In particular with people who have talked about aphantasia? (@ICantLeafYou, @Izanami9, @XerXesXu, @Vitriolhack, @Britva415, @intim8, @Erozetta, @mirafrida, @TheRedChamger )

 

[Izanami9]

YES, thank you for articulating this so well! It does resonate. I could feel all over again the faint pulse under the warm soft skin and peach fuzz of my children’s fontanels, along with the shock of momentary terror at the vulnerability of their tiny brains that always accompanied the warm protective instinct it called to in me, as soon as you described feeling yours! (Sorry for the awkward run-on sentence, yikes)

I actually don’t know where to put myself on the spectrum of imagination because it varies so much for me. When reading, I sometimes get caught up entirely in the experience of the language itself, its rhythm and variation, the pleasure a well-turned phrase brings me purely for its own sake. I see and hear nothing directly of what the words describe, but I love them for themselves and (hopefully) understand what they’re conveying intellectually. Is this aphantasia? I think of it so, but sensory data is inherently subjective and therefore difficult to measure with any degree of precision.

But usually I have the same sort of sensory experience reading that I do in dreams, which is sometimes entirely somatic, as you describe, but other times more like watching a movie. Switching from first to third person, I guess.

Meditation, especially guided, is the closest thing to sensory immersion (hyperphantasia?) I experience, and I do get that from reading certain books that I find almost hypnotic. Most notably Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, which was the most decadent reading experience I’ve ever had. It was like red wine and dark chocolate; luxurious for every sense while imparting little to no nutritional value .

Perhaps my focus is what subconsciously determines my experience. Does yours vary as well? It sounds more consistent than mine.

 

[AG31]

Is this aphantasia? I think of it so,

I don't think one's attitude toward words correlates with the aphantasic spectrum. Visual aphantasia (what most people mean) relates strictly to one's ability to make images in the mind.

the pleasure a well-turned phrase brings me purely for its own sake.

Here's a whole other thread. I don't know what the words are to denote what you're talking about, but I do enjoy authors who clearly take delight in the language they're using. I associate them with British mystery writers, but that's probably just a prejudice.

Perhaps my focus is what subconsciously determines my experience. Does yours vary as well?

If we're talking modalities (visual, audial, somatic), mine varies almost not at all. I have had 3 or 4 experiences in my whole life of visual images, and audial memories. But that's all.

 

[SerenaSteeleMonroe]

Fuck me, I misread somatization as sodomize-ation. LOL again, fuck me!