(Interested in responses to this from other people who have been pregnant, but here’s my own answer.)
I think the main thing pregnancy seemed to do to my mind was reduce my associative speed. This had all kinds of effects on the rest of my cognition and experience, because it’s a capacity I rely on almost constantly, but I think this was the central mechanism.
I’m not sure I have my concepts carved up right here, but by “associative speed” I mean “the thing that lets your thoughts go far and fast during a babble challenge”. During pregnancy I’d try to do a task like “What does the smell of this chocolate make me think of?” and nothing would come to me for ages and ages (by which I mean a full one to three seconds), and then tiny bits of things would trickle in, but with no vibrancy or motion, no suggestion of more thoughts coming on their tails.
At the height of my mnemonics training, when I was super buff in raw creativity muscles, I’d try something like that and it was an almost overwhelming flood of life-like imaginings that felt effortless, almost like closing your eyes on mushrooms. My brain on pregnancy was the opposite of that, and it felt like death.
I was terrified that my associative speed would stay that low forever. Six weeks postpartum, it’s not quite back to normal yet, but I think it’s close.
(I think I remember this) towards the end of it, I could read for a long time, my interest never sagging or spiking noticeably. I think. I’m not sure if I was capable of retaining much of what I had read.
“What did pregnancy do to your cognition?”
(Interested in responses to this from other people who have been pregnant, but here’s my own answer.)
I think the main thing pregnancy seemed to do to my mind was reduce my associative speed. This had all kinds of effects on the rest of my cognition and experience, because it’s a capacity I rely on almost constantly, but I think this was the central mechanism.
I’m not sure I have my concepts carved up right here, but by “associative speed” I mean “the thing that lets your thoughts go far and fast during a babble challenge”. During pregnancy I’d try to do a task like “What does the smell of this chocolate make me think of?” and nothing would come to me for ages and ages (by which I mean a full one to three seconds), and then tiny bits of things would trickle in, but with no vibrancy or motion, no suggestion of more thoughts coming on their tails.
At the height of my mnemonics training, when I was super buff in raw creativity muscles, I’d try something like that and it was an almost overwhelming flood of life-like imaginings that felt effortless, almost like closing your eyes on mushrooms. My brain on pregnancy was the opposite of that, and it felt like death.
I was terrified that my associative speed would stay that low forever. Six weeks postpartum, it’s not quite back to normal yet, but I think it’s close.
(I think I remember this) towards the end of it, I could read for a long time, my interest never sagging or spiking noticeably. I think. I’m not sure if I was capable of retaining much of what I had read.