I have often done all the elicitation suggestions you make. I even had tulpas—or more accurately, dissociated alters, since I was quite mentally unhealthy—for years. However, I have much less cognitive empathy than most people and I have never been able to imagine the interior of another person’s mind to any significant extent. Every attempt at writing dialogues, the duck thing, etc has failed. I simply cannot imagine being someone other than who I am. Even when I was dissociative, my “souls”, as I called them, were just aspects of myself with no actual separation. (It is possible I am on the autism spectrum, but for life reasons I’ve never had the opportunity to go to a psychiatrist.)
That said, I’ve been explaining things to imaginary (totally silent and personality-less) people my whole life. I just never seem to write it down when I do it. Getting myself to notice when I’ve wandered into doing that, and force myself to write it down, may be a key here.
The dictation suggestions are good, though due to thin walls and others in the house I could not speak my ideas aloud at night, nor could I type on a keyboard as it makes noise also. I don’t have a tablet computer but that would likely work if I could get one.
Wow, even the tulpas. Autistic people don’t simply lack empathy. It’s more like it’s undertrained and improves somewhat with experience. More exposure helps, even if it’s fictional.
Anime, particularly the kind emphasizing relationships, was helpful for me. “Great” literature, which lets you get inside someone else’s (fictional) head, should be helpful for the same reason. Shallower pop fiction may be less helpful. Quality varies a great deal. As for your case, I’m not qualified to diagnose it.
Theater sports or pen & paper RPGs (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons), which let you try out different roles might help you imagine being someone else. You might be able to find a D&D group online and even participate over the Internet.
Well, I have no idea if autism is the thing I have, of course. Analyzing the feeling of this confusion about people over the years, I’ve developed the suspicion that I actually have an ugh field around the idea of empathizing with people, rather than necessarily an inability to do so. My mind slides off the thought of trying to in the first place, and goes sort of… strategically blank, if I try to force it to empathize anyway, making it look like I’m not good at it. (And I have a long history of not being interested in other people, preferring things or ideas.)
But when I accidentally, passively empathize with people, predicting how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking without any ulterior motive for doing so, I’m usually as good at it as a neurotypical person. This implies (if it’s correct, and not just yet another confabulated explanation for my inexplicable mental patterns) that I will have to figure out the cause of my discomfort around empathizing and dismantle it.
Maybe the best way to explain my situation is that I can understand what people are thinking and feeling easily—as in the context of fiction, which I’ve always loved and read tons of—but I can’t generate it independently—exactly as if I knew a foreign language well enough to understand it when someone else speaks it, but not well enough to speak it myself.
Voice recording and dictation software is probably the easiest, since it doesn’t interrupt your thought process as much. It’s definitely worth a try, but actually writing may slow you down too much. You might consider picking up shorthand to take notes more quickly. I also wonder if a high-gain mic next to your face could pick up a whisper well enough to be intelligible, if not for dictation software, then at least for you. Could be worth experimenting with.
I have often done all the elicitation suggestions you make. I even had tulpas—or more accurately, dissociated alters, since I was quite mentally unhealthy—for years. However, I have much less cognitive empathy than most people and I have never been able to imagine the interior of another person’s mind to any significant extent. Every attempt at writing dialogues, the duck thing, etc has failed. I simply cannot imagine being someone other than who I am. Even when I was dissociative, my “souls”, as I called them, were just aspects of myself with no actual separation. (It is possible I am on the autism spectrum, but for life reasons I’ve never had the opportunity to go to a psychiatrist.)
That said, I’ve been explaining things to imaginary (totally silent and personality-less) people my whole life. I just never seem to write it down when I do it. Getting myself to notice when I’ve wandered into doing that, and force myself to write it down, may be a key here.
The dictation suggestions are good, though due to thin walls and others in the house I could not speak my ideas aloud at night, nor could I type on a keyboard as it makes noise also. I don’t have a tablet computer but that would likely work if I could get one.
Wow, even the tulpas. Autistic people don’t simply lack empathy. It’s more like it’s undertrained and improves somewhat with experience. More exposure helps, even if it’s fictional.
Anime, particularly the kind emphasizing relationships, was helpful for me. “Great” literature, which lets you get inside someone else’s (fictional) head, should be helpful for the same reason. Shallower pop fiction may be less helpful. Quality varies a great deal. As for your case, I’m not qualified to diagnose it.
Theater sports or pen & paper RPGs (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons), which let you try out different roles might help you imagine being someone else. You might be able to find a D&D group online and even participate over the Internet.
Well, I have no idea if autism is the thing I have, of course. Analyzing the feeling of this confusion about people over the years, I’ve developed the suspicion that I actually have an ugh field around the idea of empathizing with people, rather than necessarily an inability to do so. My mind slides off the thought of trying to in the first place, and goes sort of… strategically blank, if I try to force it to empathize anyway, making it look like I’m not good at it. (And I have a long history of not being interested in other people, preferring things or ideas.)
But when I accidentally, passively empathize with people, predicting how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking without any ulterior motive for doing so, I’m usually as good at it as a neurotypical person. This implies (if it’s correct, and not just yet another confabulated explanation for my inexplicable mental patterns) that I will have to figure out the cause of my discomfort around empathizing and dismantle it.
Maybe the best way to explain my situation is that I can understand what people are thinking and feeling easily—as in the context of fiction, which I’ve always loved and read tons of—but I can’t generate it independently—exactly as if I knew a foreign language well enough to understand it when someone else speaks it, but not well enough to speak it myself.
Voice recording and dictation software is probably the easiest, since it doesn’t interrupt your thought process as much. It’s definitely worth a try, but actually writing may slow you down too much. You might consider picking up shorthand to take notes more quickly. I also wonder if a high-gain mic next to your face could pick up a whisper well enough to be intelligible, if not for dictation software, then at least for you. Could be worth experimenting with.