The Smell You Can Lick

Host Bob experiences aphantasia not just visually, but also across auditory and olfactory senses. He cannot mentally visualize images, hear music (only his own breath when trying), or conjure smells. This contrasts sharply with his co-hosts' more vivid internal experiences.

Bob states, "I have complete aphantasia. I don't see If I close my eyes and try and imagine things, I see like blackness and I got nothing... I don't hear either. If I'm imagining like a piece of music... I don't hear it." He later adds, "I could not tell you what a thing smells like to save my life."

Unlike Bob, Mark and Wade can vividly "hear" songs and specific voices (e.g., Christopher Walken) in their heads. They also visualize scenes and objects during improv comedy, which helps them track physical space and elements within a hypothetical environment.

Wade confirms, "Yeah, I can It's harder to hear the instrumental. I guess I can hear the lyrics very clearly... Christopher Walkin. Yeah. I just pictured him in the cowbell skit and I heard him talking." Wade also describes visualizing improv scenes: "Yes, that's the broom. Here's the ice cream stand... I see those things in the scene while we're doing it."

All three hosts report a strong ability to mentally conjure tactile sensations and textures. This includes both pleasant experiences like creamy ice cream or chocolate chips in a shake, and unpleasant ones such as styrofoam, felt, or cotton balls, often eliciting a physical reaction.

Mark states, "Texture is pretty strong. It's pretty strong. It's to the point where if I imagine all the textures that I really, really don't like touching, it just makes me physically uncomfortable." Bob also notes, "I can feel the juice. I can almost taste or smell it, but like it's all the other like the sound of the crunch. Like all of that is there, but like the taste and the smell both are kind of eluding me."

Mark demonstrates that motor imagery (mentally simulating physical movements) can be improved with practice. He describes using this ability to induce sleep by imagining moving objects and notes scientific studies show visualizing actions can enhance physical performance in athletes.

Mark explains, "I would imagine my whole bed was swinging and I could feel the like myself swinging... the more I did it, the more I practiced it, the more I got better at it." Bob references studies: "There are scientific studies that actually have shown that this that that um shadow boxing improves boxers performance... the imagination group was actually closer to the practice group."

Markiplier details how his casual remarks on a separate podcast about the VFX process for his film "Iron Lung" were distorted into sensational headlines, such as falsely claiming he "ditched" his VFX company over budget. He clarifies the actual situation involved purchasing hardware for the company to use.

Mark states, "I get a I get a text from Wes... asking why you fired us on Iron Lung... The headline of this article is Markiplier ditched the Iron Lung VFX company over budget and turned his own bathroom into a render farm with old servers from eBay. Which is not what I said at all."