House of Leaves is one of the best|malformed|monstrous|resonant|reflective stories I have ever experienced in my life.
Now, pay attention to what I said. Each and every word in that sentence is intentional|purposeful|The Chosen One.
I am imagination-blind. I cannot actively picture, see, hear, or smell anything "in my head"|"The Mind's Eye"|"Like my own personal movie."
The technical term for this phenomena is Aphantasia. I prefer to use Imagination-blind, because that paints a much clearer picture of Oblivion|The Void|The Eternal Blindness of my Soul|The Veil that Shields Divinity.
Now, this makes doing a lot of shit way, way, way harder for me.
I lose shit. I can't recreate memories, imagine sensory experiences, or 'picture' shit in my mind. imagine not having an imagination. That's what it feels like.
But this is a shallow, blase description of what it actually *feels* like.
For the life of me, I never found a way to properly convey the experience of sensory blindness. Just as one cannot describe what colour 'looks' like|cannot describe the sensation of taste|of sound|of sight|of touch|of the nature of one's soul in the eternal, vacuous abyss.
And then I read House of Leaves || I saw the monster peering back at me through the mirror.
The Void|Chaos|Oblivion|The Hardware|Neurons firing, triggering responses, reflecting formless terror overtop one's very perception of reality until the thin veil we construct for ourselves is torn away and we are bare to the endless NOTHING OF REALITY.
House of Leaves changed|altered|reformed|adapted|Opened the Inner Eye to me. It tore my preconceptions|assumptions|gathered information|past experiences|memories to fucking shreds and the Inner Voice speaks with the voice of God.
And oh lord it *burns* my lobes. This kind of self analysis || using the linguistic & problem solving regions of my brain to compensate for the debilitating lack of one of my primary senses|The Mind's Eye is dead|mute|blind|dumb|Hellen Keller frfr.
you can see how the linguistic part of my brain is good at squeezing out word associations. It's doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Compensating for my Imagination-blindness really taxes the other parts of my brain. Up until recently I've been using the words 'Autistic' and 'ADHD' to describe the cluster of symptoms I suffer from due to this condition.
And I suppose I fit on the spectrum? I know the vyvanse sure as shit helps with my absolutely critical Dopamine Defficiency (yeah turns out you need lots of dopamine to compensate for the Imagination-blindess|overcompensation|lactic acid|overworked muscles|"FEEL THE BURN BRUTHER".
Like, this is the best way I can describe what my brain is doing to compensate for the 'Imagination Blindness'. It's not that I don't have an imagination, it's just that it uses different neural pathways to accomplish the same goals|objectives|functions|vital roles that a functional visual imagination would be used for.
When I write these kinds of scripts, I'm literally taking THC pills to TURBOCHARGE my brain with Dopamine to be able to run my brain faster|pump the gas|pedal to the METAL MOTHERFUCKER WE"RE GOING ON OVERDRIVE|"WARP SPEED SCOTTY"||"TO THE FUCKING MOOOOOOOOOON" || turbocharge my linguistic & problem solving neurons to be able to fully compensate for the lack of a visual imagination|the Imagination-blindness|The Oblivion, everpresent, all-consuming.
It's my attempt at describing things by running juice thru the 'visual' neurons in my brain - because they're still there || I can dream just fine. I know exactly what I'm missing out on in my waking hours. My wires are crossed, but the wires are still there. This particular writing method is an experiment with actively firing those neurons and seeing what happens. And as it turns out, I do have an imagination. It's just been so atrophied after 10 years of being Alive, and only now in 2025 am I healing and picking who I was back up || life after the divorce has involved a lot of healing bro. It's hard work, but it's absolutely worth it.
I am who I am again, and I'm learning how to peer into the face of God|Oblivion once more. (I went to a catholic school, the biblical metaphors are hard-coded in there. That's an interesting creative direction I can take myself in|"Oh I guess that's a part of who I am".
As it turns out, I can use my visual imagination to therapise myself. Huh. That's neat. Psycho-analysis on demand.
Jesus fucking Christmas that's handy. Good LORD life can really FUCK YOU UP.
I know this is supposed to be about House of Leaves, but shut the fuck up if Zampano can rant incomprehensibly into the darkness|terror|the Predator then so can I! At least I *try* to make this interesting to read|listen to|experience || please tell me you're getting this, I don't fucking know if this is working PLEASE TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND THIS I PEER INTO THE FACE OF GOD AND I SEE THE VOID NOTHING BUT THE VOID PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CAN ANYBODY HERE ME GOD MOM DAD PLEASESOMEBODYTELLMETHEYCAN HEAR MEEEEE-
It's still about House of Leaves, but it's more about WTF that book did to me. It **devestated** me. It hit me like a tsunami. Ego Death Supremus.
Ordinarily I can read a 700 page book in like 2-3 days tops if I really put my mind to it.
House of Leaves took me 3 MONTHS to read.
I wrote a 50 slide, 60 minute presentation complete with 3 case studies about how malleable language is & how you can utilize the very medium of writing|The Book|Jungian Archetypes. Fuck you Jung you narrowminded, bureacratic; utterly pedantic prussian urethra. You ain't got *SHIT* on me.
I spent 10 minutes trying to edit that insult into something comprehensible. I've got nothin. I'm doing my best to interpret here || i just work with what the Void gives me.
Writing with my new grammar is pretty handy. I've been making it up as I write the Valen's Character Studies, and good lord it makes certain types of writing|expression|metaphor|imagery so much goddamn easier. Fuck it, Steven's gonna start thinking like that after a while. That's reflective of Valen's entire neurology|lore|themes|reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon reflections upon yada yada you get the idea.
I've been experimenting with my own unique grammar|punctuation|using the Medium of Written Language as part of my stylistic expression|my artistic signature|'The Rizz'.
Idk if that's what you think Rizz means, that's just what it feels like to me. Idc about whatever you use that word for. Private Definitions *biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch~*
idk where I'm going with this anymore jfc.
The neurons have run out of gas|lactic acid|overworked|needs to recover|mental endurance only goes so far.
~~oh no~~ Gotta give em a rest.
That's the first time I've used strikethroughs like that. I like that. I'll try to do that more || let's see what happens|experimentation.
No matter what I do, the House calls me back in. The inescapable nature of Oblivion. It calls to me | draws me in|"A Siren's Call."
It echoes and echoes and echoes ad nauseum. I'll spare you the word count, you get the picture. I'm not that committed to the bit.
Medium is so much fun to fuck with.
You can do *SO* much with it, but I rarely see anyone REALLY taking it as far as it can go.
House of Leaves is the only book I've ever seen to utilize Medium for creative|thematic|artistic expression. I intend to change that.
Medium is fluid|loose|malleable || Language is fluid|loose|malleable.
Ooooo maybe I should centre all of Valen's dialogue || distinguish between Steven & Valen's 3rd person limited narration perspective within the bounds of a single scene omg that's fucking GREAT that'd made writing this SO much easier and I don't have to consider the really fucking annoying writing rules & strictures that CHAFE MY FUCKING BALLS oh this is awesome fuckessss THANK YOU FOR TEXT ALLIGNMENT COMUPTER JESUS. BLESS YOU, YOU PEDANTIC NERD.
Aaaaand I just got sidetracked on a tangeant about how much I hate social media. Save that for your essay nerd. Slow your horses. Ease up on them testicles sailor.
you still gotta use regular grammar too, otherwise people are gonna get way too confused reading your book. You gotta EASE em into it.
Also releasing a read-along series on youtube/substack as well as an audiobooks is a really fucking good idea I should do that. That's easy to do, easy to edit, and takes minimal time || really good practice for narration & reading out loud in general.
Ok I should really go do something else now my ADHD is kicking in. I'm just gonna raw dog this one onto my blog. If you read this far, you have my gratitude|condolonces.
- 'Squatch