📝 Hyperphantasia and ADHD: The Director’s Cut

By Laura Flores

For as long as I can remember, I’ve experienced the world from within a "mirror world" inside my mind. I don't know why my brain decided this is how to live, but it saves every memory as a loadable "Sims" sequence—complete with sound, ideas, textures, tastes, and high-fidelity graphics. Most notably, it records feelings in every definition of the word.

To remember something isn’t just to "think" of it. For me, it involves pausing the sequence, focusing on specific data points, adjusting camera angles, and selectively resuming.

The Blue Elephant Asset

Take my earliest memory. I was five months old, lying in a crib. Most people have a blurry "concept" of their infancy; I have a high-fidelity rendering.

I remember the dark gray of the room and the spinning carousel of flat, 2D silhouettes hanging above me. I particularly wanted what I now recognize as a blue terry cloth elephant. I can still "load" the tactile metadata: the weirdly soft-rough texture of the cloth. I remember the "annoyed patience" of waiting for it to spin back into my reach.

When I finally grabbed it, my infant reflexes kicked in—a "Hand-to-Mouth" script that allowed me to taste the squishy center. It was a treasure. But then, it was ripped away. My mom, acting as the "System Administrator," saw I had pulled the mobile down and deleted the asset from my physical world. I spent weeks waiting for it to come back around. I didn't know then that I was already building the 4K archives I live in today.

The Day the Code Broke

On May 12th, 2025, my world changed. I had a stroke.

In an instant, I was trapped on the floor. I lay there on the carpet, and because of my Hyperphantasia, I wasn't just "lying there"—I was recording the forensic detail of the fibers against my face and the terrifying silence of my own limbs.

I remember the absolute terror of wondering how to move. My brain was sending the "Stand Up" command, but the signal was hitting a dead end. Even more vivid is the sound of my wife, Danielle. I have her "troubleshooting tone" saved in a file labeled Helpful Futility and Exasperation. She was trying to walk me through the process of moving, and all my 4K recorder could manage to output was a single, devastating error message: "I can't feel my limbs."

The "Geriatric Toddler" Protocol

Since that day, I have been forced to re-experience everything as a "Geriatric Toddler." I am not geriatric by age, but I am an experienced pilot trapped in "Beta Hardware." I have a lifetime of memories saved with all the sensory data I've learned over 40 years, but my current physical drivers are corrupted.

Every day is a forensic audit. When I work with "Lefty" (my left arm and hand), I am comparing the current glitchy feedback to the 4K records of the last four decades. I am searching the archives for that original "grab and pull" reflex I discovered with the blue elephant, trying to map it onto a body that's learning to speak to itself again.

The Search for a Manageable Level

People ask why I love to read and write. It’s because the real world is loud. Because I have Hyperphantasia and ADHD, I don’t have an automatic background filter. I am recording the texture of the air, the hum of the fridge, and the emotional temperature of the room all at once. It is overwhelming.

I read and write for the same purpose: to get my experience to a manageable level. Reading allows me to load words into a fairly empty world, relaxing with less sensory loading. Writing allows me to "downsample" the 4K noise of life into a single, quiet stream of clarity. In this blog, I’m finally trying to understand the pieces I’ve gathered.

Welcome to the Mirror World.