Some may find this interesting. We recently binged on a bunch of “Our Gang” comedy shorts (aka The Little Rascals), all restored and on blu-ray. One of the shorts (from 1931) happened to show a restaurant menu which featured “Liberty Sandwich” as a selection. WTF. We checked it out, and apparently the name for a time was used in place of “Hamburger” which, during WW1, was too German for decent people to utter, hence the alternative name. This WW1 renaming tweakery extended also (and for the same reason) to the “German Measles”. Yep. “Liberty Measles”. Politicians were no smarter 70 years later: “Freedom Fries”. The more things change…
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Re ‘visuals’, what are your dreams like?
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I don’t have dreams lol.
Sometimes I get exploding head syndrome and am awakened by a loud mental noise.
Extremely occasionally I’ll have a dream, but there’s no visuals. I just know what things are like and what’s happening. It’s mostly just emotional content. Strong feelings.
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Freedom Fries wasn’t even about being at war with France, just that they were opposed to an illegal invasion of another country, so it’s actually considerably stupider.
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I get that once every couple of years. Re dreaming, maybe a bed partner can observe you sleeping and watch for evidence of REM? 
Many people cannot recall ther dreams.
On visualization, every now and then, just after waking up but still in lying in bed and totally relaxed with my eyes still closed, I get something I call ‘fallout’ from perhaps whatever I was dreaming before, and it’s always the same thing: A geometric object (something like a dodecahedron) well lit, slowly rotating about some axis, and extremely vivid. Like real. Each time this has happened, I’ve been able to exert mental pressure to get the object to slow down (behaving as if it has mass) and rotate in a different direction. The effect is fascinating but lasts only about a minute or so… unfortunately. Weird!
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I can do roughly the equivalent with sound at will. I don’t have perfect pitch, but that doesn’t matter as long as I’m just imagining it.
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Happy Mutants, indeed!
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Not everyone can imagine the whole length of their favorite song in good detail in a second or two?
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Wha the…?
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The best way I can describe it is, it’s like loading the sound project file into RAM
If you’ve ever done that in a digital audio studio, like FL studio or Reason or Cubase or whatever’s popular these days
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I can’t imagine what that would look like!
source: am also aphantasic
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This is something I do, minus the speed. Not just my favorite song, but music in general. While singing or playing an instrument, it leads me to mimic what was recorded. Listening to different versions tends to bug me - during karaoke, for example. I’ve sometimes performed a cappella rather than change key.
Yesterday I found a few tunes I haven’t heard in twenty years, but startled myself by singing along note for note. If only there were language courses that taught vocabulary through song… 
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Happy Winter Solstice!
For those in the northern hemisphere, daylight hours have been decreasing, and media outlets seem to declare the beginning of wintertime earlier every year. It’s interesting to learn how many countries around the world have festivals (secular or religious) to celebrate light:
OTOH, while some celebrate the light, there’s a case to be made against too much of it at night:
Dark Sky festivals focus on the stars:
Samhain or pre-Yule seasonal celebrations present another interesting perspective:
This year, despite the seasonal struggle against Vitamin D deficiency, my plan is to spend a few minutes each day appreciating the darkness before the urge to watch a Yule log video strikes again. 
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I freaked out my school friends a couple of years ago like that! And I believe that when you are trying to speak a language you should try to sing it. It’s amazing how much easier it is for people to understand you if you have the rhythm.
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It definitely helps me remember, but the one caveat is languages where pronunciation is different in songs and poetry. Found that out with French.
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I should have put sing in inverted commas there!
Not with an actual tune, but with attention to rhythm, cadence, and intonation.
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We have to have a big ass party at the solstice or the sun might not come back!
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A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD ILLUMINATE THE WORLD.
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