I’ve been wondering for a while now if I might have that gene or whether Cilantro is just a herb i dislike. I can stomach dishes with cilantro in them, but it just stings through everything. No matter how little was put in, it tastes to me like somebody over-cilantro’d the dish. I’ve never eaten anything where I thought “Mmmh, yes, there’s a subtle hint of cilantro” - it’s always “Oh, there’s the cilantro, and it’s just too strong”.
But whenever I read about this online, people say that it tastes like soap. It’s been a couple of years since I was toddler enough to just put soap in my mouth. But in my mind, the taste of soap is mostly bitter, with an overwhelming tropical/fruity/citrussy flavor of whatever the producers decided to make the soap smell like. I also imagine it having a really unpleasant texture/mouthfeel. I have no urge to try eating soap, just so I can compare it with the taste of a herb. And I assume that most people with the Cilantro-gene also haven’t made an actual taste-comparison. So hence my question: In what way does anything - but cilantro in particular - taste like soap?
Um… I hate to break it to you but I kind of do have a tv in my head. So do lots of people.
Yep, was surprised when my friend told me what his aphantasia was like.
When I was a kid, I had watched some movies so many times that I could actually play back the entire movie start to finish in my head, with visuals and audio. Made some long car/bus trips more bearable.
When I read books, I usually end up casting characters using celebrities I know, and enter a sort of flow state where I watch it play out in my mind like a movie. Voiced dialog and cinematography and everything.
Surprised me that a lot of people just can’t do that. They understand everything but just can’t visualize.
And I could not do math without the ability to create graphs in my head.
And yeah, reading would be a lot more boring without being able to picture what’s going on. I’ve definitely confused movies and books before because my memory of the book feels just as vivid as recalling a movie i’ve seen.