Ask Lemmy

Huh. So I imagined the ball on the table immediately as a colorless glass sphere on a white table. Before I even read the prompt to push the ball in my imagination I had already placed my index finger on the ball and was rolling it around it place like a fidgit so I just tapped the ball to push it with my index finger so the person who pushed the ball was me (non-binary) for reasons that I was already interacting with the ball anyway. I imagined this in the first person so I didn't really see myself in full. The ball itself was baseball sized and rolled a short distance, stopped and wobbled after being pushed.

I didn't think about what the table was made of but the ball itself was glass that was smooth and cold to the touch. The table was square, waist height and dining room table sized. The room these objects were in was featureless and visualization was instant upon reading.

The blue ball won’t roll because it was on a table of clean laundry

red/blue stripes

none

they didn't

small pool ball

generic Simpsonesque brown, but it stopped existing towards the corners.

Orange

Male

He was a server in a black waistcoat, white shirt. He was brushing the ball off the table before setting plates down.

It was a ball from a kid's ball pit, so a little bigger than a baseball, smaller than a softball.

The table was round, with a red gingham table cloth.

The orange ball on the red gingham table cloth were there immediately, once instructed to visualize a person pushing it, it only made sense that it was a server, since the table seemed restauranty.

The ball falls off the edge but doesn't make a sound, effectively disappears from the scene.

Glass ball for some reason

Nondescript woman, no distinct features, blurry at the edge of perception. Vaguely wearing business clothes.

Ball was softball size

Table was featureless but the size and color of the table I'm sitting at now

Don't know, they were an amorphous humanoid so I uh don't know for these two, baseball ish sized could fit in a palm, the platonic ideal of a wooden table. The first questions did not make me change the thing in my head. I don't think I see color in my mind eye, but I can uhhh label things with a color. Like. This ball is red, I think to myself, as the ball... continues to ball. Maybe if I imagined a specific red ball it world be redder.

• The ball was orange
• I don't remember
• I don't remember
• As big as an orange
• The ball was on a white surface

Red

Didn’t think about gender

Didn’t think about what they looked like

Ball was baseball sized

It was a square wooden table

Bonus, I imagined the ball rolling across the table and then falling off the table and bouncing a few times on the floor.

I didn’t choose any answers after reading the questions, but didn’t have an answers for the person.

The ball was silver and completely reflective. The seen basically looked like that image used for ray tracing testing. No gender just a hand. Table was black

Light blue ball

Male

Medium height dressed in a long sleeved pale blue collared work shirt, wearing jeans, with a brown belt. Brown hair. Non-descript facial features.

Tennis ball sized

A white, rectangular wooden table.

I already knew, the picture formed instantly on reading the prompt. Initially my perspective was looking directly at the ball then when I read the part about pushing it off the table my perspective shifted further back.

Color: red

Gender of pusher: undetermined

Looks of pusher: detached skinny white arm/hand

Size: roughly palm sized (full grown adult)

Table: wood, circular. Changed to black void with half pipe like pinball track upon being rolled.

After a quick visualization, that's what I got. Seeing the questions didn't change my answers

Edit: ball moved along the track for a moment before I stopped thinking about it, mostly since that train of thought made my brain switch to Sonic Spinball.

Purple-ish

Male? Maybe?

Too abstract I more imagined an arm more than a whole person

Baseballish

Square, I dunno it was also purple. I get very like, early computer animation type vibes from the whole scene. "Ball" and "table" without any context just leaves everything kinda blank.

I think I already knew. Maybe the gender one was a stretch.

What do i have if i can't stop the ball from falling? Like the person stops it from one side and it bounces to the other and fall that way.

I also have trouble stopping clocks from spinning in my imagination

• The ball was red and smooth and uniform and shaded like it had been painted there or drawn with colored pencil.
• the gender of the person was indeterminate, perhaps leaning female
• they did not have a definite look to describe, it was more a concept of a person. They were a featureless, fuzzy, void-white silhouette adorned only by a similarly featureless light blue t-shirt, black pants and black hair, all so ill-defined it was as if they they had been hastily cut from craft paper and slapped over top the glowing form. Like the color scheme of the fitness boxing mascot, but the more simplified form of South Park Canadians, and more amorphous.
• the ball was slightly larger than a baseball but smaller than a softball
• the table was rectangular, of beige ‘wood’ with a light grain, and very sharp edges. It looked distinctly like it was out of a low poly video game.

Important question: The ball and table were distinct and known but oddly not “real-life”. The person was very indistinct and the gender is merely speculation. The edges defining their arms and hands became more defined as they approached and interacted with the ball. The color and form of the clothing and hair manifested then too.

Interestingly, I “know” the visualization took place in my kitchen, in an orientation different than my actual kitchen table. I saw the light from the windows Illuminate the table and the ball, and I could tell where I was in the space watching it happen, but the kitchen wasn’t there and neither was I. The table, ball and person appeared alone in a murky dark void.

• The ball was red
• The person was of indeterminate gender, I only really saw their arm
• They were wearing a blue button up over a white shirt
• The ball is about the size of an orange, and it rolled forwards
• The table was made of wood

I had to picture it again to get the shirt color but not the rest. I can say that the background was dark, almost like a dimly lit billiards hall, and there was a light shining on the ball

Blue. Didn't really envision a person, just the hand, didn't notice the potential sex. It was a billiard ball on a pool table. The ball kinda rolled gently across the table at an angle, hit the side, and slowly rolled back before stopping.

• What color was the ball? Blue
• What gender was the person that pushed the ball? Male
• What did they look like? Skinny, pants, dress shirt
• What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else? Blue, smooth, baseball sized
• What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? Around 2ft square, wooden, light color, four square legs

All of this was built in my head with each part of the prompt. Pretty sure I don't have aphantasia.

Red No gender No appearance No size The table was the same color as our dining table, but that was the only property it had.

• What color was the ball? - Red rubber, like an old school dodgeball.
• What gender was the person that pushed the ball? - Unknown, all I saw was a hand and the sleeve of a white dress shirt with the cuff rolled up.
• What did they look like? As above.
• What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else? About the size of a softball. Bigger than a baseball, smaller than a basketball.
• What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? Square natural wooden table.

Already knew.

Well maybe I'm not all that aphantasiac, I immediately came up with a woman pushing a 9-ball on a green billiards table

I already had my answers before looking through the questions. Red, no gender, mostly a lab coat, tennis ball sized, waist-high wooden rectangular table.

The ball was white/light gray. It has the surface texture of plaster of Paris, but it is somewhat lighter than would be appropriate for its canteloupe-like size.

I don't think I actually pictured a whole person as pushing the ball, more likely it was a disembodied hand or the general sensation of pushing it myself.

I remember being specifically intrigued that I pictured the ball rolling back towards the center of the table and pondering why I had chosen the table to be slightly concave. I don't remember more attributes of the table, but I have the feeling that has more to do with inattention to its details rather than not picturing them at the time.

I imagine that, based on the framing of the story, my interpretation was to picture the sphere as a literal entity, but the person as the "concept of a push"... The table probably lied somewhere in the middle.

I've always found this subject fascinating. Why are we all so different in this regards? What's going or not going on up there? Anyway, this is my result…

The ball was pale, not any color specific, something life a cream color. The person was nongendered, just a hand extending from a black suit with no determining orientation. They were a suit below the shoulder to above the knee, no other visible details past the table. The ball is maybe baseball sized, just big enough to comfortably fit the hand. The table is my current dining room table, an antique drop leaf table. This detail was the oddest to reconsider because until now I've been imagining either my previous table or the coffee table from my childhood, I don't normally decorate the thought space.

I instantly saw a soccer ball on our dining room table. The push throws a glass of the table.

• The color of the ball was white with black pattern like a classic soccer ball.

• The gender was male.

• I didn't see the person clearly, only the hands pushing.

• Soccer ball

• The table in my imagination was exactly our light brown beech wood dining room table.

The points described were instantly in my head. Only for the person itself I would need to try again.

I already knew after I read the prompt. It was like a little YouTube video playing in my head! 😃

I can only see still frames of random motions and detective gadget animated is the character who flicks the ball. The red ball which I then added a hammer and sickle moves with illustrative wooshes across the table bounces off of a wall into detective gadgets eye.

• Reflective metallic silver, like a ball bearing.
• genderless
• a mannequin silhouette
• about the size of a large grape? Like a superball.
• my wooden dining room table, background and all.

The focus seemed to be on picturing the table and ball, and the person pushing it was irrelevant other than to provide motive force, so I didn't spend any time to fill in their details.

My ball was blue. It's one of those dog toy soft bouncy ones. Table is rectangular, wood, with a light colored stain that's well polished. A man casually slaps the ball and I hear the sound that type of ball makes as it bounces without much force. It bounced once off the table, then off the wall onto the floor where it did the dribble bounce off the tile in the kitchen until coming to rest on the carpet in the living room. None of what I see is related to my house.

If I really wanted to, I can vanish into this world I've built for the ball. I can get lost, staring out a window or something while not actually seeing anything because I'm in my head. I have hyperphantasia. It's seen more often than aphantasia, but it's not exactly common. It's very useful for creative endeavors, but has a lot of pitfalls; usually involving spacing out at inopportune times.

• black
• male
• nothing, it was just a hand pushing the ball
• a ping pong ball
• round, wood coloured, but thin like a metal coffee table.

I did have to think about how to put it into words, but the picture was fully formed before revealing the questions.