Ask Lemmy

Well, not really superpowers since they are common in humans. However, they are pretty interesting abilities nonetheless.

• Advanced speech recognition. I can filter out speech of one person while ignoring other background noise and even other speech.

• Advanced face recognition. I can see faces in clouds, floors, and other inanimate objects. Also helps when looking at real faces of people in a crowd. See also: pareidolia

• Auditory hallucinations during hypnagogia. Look it up. It’s weird and trippy.

• Desensitization and habituation to capsaicin. I can eat spicy foods.

My knee makes horrible, disturbing crackling and popping sounds when I move it, even just a little bit. It doesn't hurt at all, and grosses out anyone who is unfortunate enough to hear it. I especially enjoy telling family members to "listen to this" and then slowly extending my leg out.

I shattered the upper portion of my tibia while bouldering to get this ability. I asked my surgeon about it (my tibia/knee required a total of 3 surgeries to repair) and they told me it was likely scar tissue, and would persist.

Remember those "exercise while you sleep" infomercials? I have parasomnia, so sometimes I wake up sore from moving around all night. Turns out, it really is like exercise while you sleep.

This must have been terrifying for the ant.

I can plug in a USB drive/cable on the first time, successfully, without flipflopping the connector (and then USB C had to come along and invalidate my only worthwhile achievement)

I can cut butter to the exact weight each time.

I honestly can't think of a damned thing I'm weirdly good at. Maybe that's my super power. Extreme averageness.

I have super sensitive hearing, so while I can hear the faintest of noises, it also means loud noises are overwhelming and painful.

I can bend the top segment of my second toe backwards, 90 degrees on both feet. It feels comfy. It freaks my husband out when I do it.

I'm really bad with names and faces, but I can distinguish twins. I mean not the twins like "and my twin has a penis" but monozygotic twins.

I don't claim it to be any kind of a super power, but with my inability to recognize people even after they've been at the hairdresser it's really astonishing.

Does ADHD count? As it has a few superpowers you just can’t turn them on when you want sometimes. It also comes with some kryptonite.

If there's some important time by when I need to wake up (flight/train to catch, or waking up to travel by car or go for an appointment) I wake up around 5-10 minutes before my alarm. Like, always. I wish I was joking.

I am a very heavy sleeper. But I have no idea what happens to my internal clock at moments like those.

I can play a spontaneous and convincing harmony on my violin to any song I hear. Sometimes I can even do this as I'm hearing a new song for the first time and trying to join in. I also suck at reading sheet music, so this could be a survival adaptation?

I can crack my elbows like knuckles by just extending my arms. My brother can do it too, but I've never met anyone else who can do it.

I get to be the favorite of pretty much all the family pets. Always been.

Some family and friends joke that I probably could go to an African safari and the lions wouldn't harm me. Not really rushing to find out if it's true tho.

Probably odorous house ants (sometimes also called sugar ants). I'm fairly sensitive to their scent, myself and recall being in tears as a small child ~6 because one of them walked across my finger and no amount of washing would get the smell off. I'm not a fan.

My super power is that I always know the difference between a fart and a shit before it exits.

I can stop hiccups at will. Whenever I get a hiccup, I just stop.

Hyper-compartmentalization. Everything can be falling apart around me, high stakes, emergency, danger, but I just proceed calmly and steadily toward the goal. I am a rat in a maze, and each decision is just an ab node in a tree. I make best guesses and don't shoulda woulda. If I can't make it and everything is horrible, that was the outcome, I did the best I could with the knowledge/data given, or I put in what I felt was right, and if I'm wrong, oh well.

I guess we are only talking about the oddly specific ones so.

I like acidic foods so much, that I drank a cup of vinegar once, and survived.

My teeth are also weirdly resistant to decay.

i can touch my thumb to my wrist. Not terribly useful.

I can also smell ants but only after I squish them.

My superpower is I can accurately pour one or one half cup of rice by sight and feel without going by the line on the measuring cup.

Back in university, I studied basically all day long, which was tiresome after long sessions of study, even if with friends. My great superpower is that it used to just take me ~10 seconds of resting with my eyes closed to feel a huuuuge boost of energy that lasted for 1-2 hours. After that boost expired, I just did it again.

Incredibly useful.

I can blur my vision on command, kinda useless but a bit of fun to play with.

I also have a lazy eye, so I can scare unsuspecting people, sometimes two at a time if they're positioned right.