Meet the World's Greatest Imagination Neuroscientist You’ve Never Heard Of

About the conversation

🧠 THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILY Here is the full, ad free version of my conversation with Reshanne Reeder. Dr. Reshanne Reeder is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Liverpool and creator of the Ganzflicker — a flickering screen that makes most people hallucinate complex scenes within a minute, no drugs required. Her research suggests hallucinations themselves are just disordered mental imagery, and that the most vividly imaginative among us may be the closest normal-range group to a psychotic break. Expect to learn: - The Ganzflicker: why a red-and-black flicker floods most people with faces and landscapes in under a minute - Disordered Imagery: her claim that hallucinations are imagination that has slipped its leash - Two Kinds Of Seeing Things: why psychedelic and clinical hallucinations run on different mechanisms - The Hidden Cost: why aphantasia may come with a face-recognition penalty - Predicting Psychosis: how she's trying to spot risk years before it develops GS EPISODES MENTIONED Adam Zeman - The Blind Mind's Eye: How Aphantasia Is Rewriting Consciousness ! Dr Adam Zeman: https://youtu.be/SgA2up6-Bok Alfredo Spagna - Meet The Neuroscientist Proving We Got Imagination & Aphantasia WRONG!: https://youtu.be/k8SBHefDnEk David Luke - Meet the Professor of Paranormal Consciousness - DMT Entities, Telepathy Tapes & OBE's: https://youtu.be/qLKD1gt1X5o Karl Friston - Meet The Neuroscientist Who Created The Best Universal Theory Of Brain Function: https://youtu.be/R-IZOFs4qmY Anil Seth - No. 1 Consciousness Expert: Optical Illusions that Prove Reality is a Lie, Emotions, Books and AI!: https://youtu.be/lOSA06K0l1o GUEST LINKS University of Liverpool Faculty Page: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/reshanne-reeder Personal Website (Ganzflicker Demo): https://www.reshannereeder.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kerblooee.bsky.social Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DfdUB3UAAAAJ LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/reshanne-reeder-53182123b LISTEN ON Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7M Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 SKOOL Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about FOLLOW EVAN https://x.com/evan_mcgl TIMESTAMPS 0:00:00 Trailer 0:02:29 How She Discovered Imagery Isn't One Thing 0:08:43 Can You Decode Images in an Aphantasic's Brain? 0:10:37 The Truth About "Unconscious" Mental Imagery 0:14:10 Imagery vs Imagination: Why They Aren't the Same Word 0:17:04 Imagery, Perception, Hallucination, Dreaming: Where's the Line? 0:18:45 The Hyperphantasics Who Project Images Into the Real World 0:20:32 Her Bold Claim: Hallucinations Are Disordered Imagery 0:21:46 Can Aphantasics Hallucinate on Psychedelics? 0:26:04 The DMT Study Where 90% Said It Felt More Real Than Reality 0:27:48 Why Mental Imagery Breaks the Predictive Brain Theory 0:30:30 The Irish Castle Test: Are Mental Images Just Priors? 0:37:07 She Made People See Faces in Pure Random Noise 0:40:13 The Illusion That Turns Faces Into Monsters 0:43:57 Why Aphantasia Might Come With a Face-Recognition Cost 0:45:44 His Sister Went 31 Years Without Knowing She Had Aphantasia 0:48:08 The Accidental Origin Story of Ganzflicker 0:49:35 The 1700s Origin of the "Whole Field" Hallucination Effect 0:55:50 "I See a Lighthouse": The Moment Ganzflicker Was Born 0:58:37 Why Aphantasics Barely Hallucinate on Ganzflicker 1:03:40 The Sharp Cliff Between Zero and Weak Mental Imagery 1:10:39 Why Nobody Hallucinates Their Phone 1:17:54 The Hypnosis Session That Left His Arm Frozen in the Air 1:20:22 The 1960s "Dream Machine" That Was Supposed to Replace TV 1:34:08 Can This Predict Psychosis Before It Happens? .....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com